Gemini Rising
by Fritz Baugh
Summary: June 13, 1999; Timeline Year 17. A year after getting married, Egon and Janine Spengler are becoming parents...causing a mysterious evil to set in motion an agenda that will threaten all of history.
1. Chapter 1

**GEMINI RISING  
PART ONE**

**By Fritz Baugh  
GBI Case File GBNY-1999-17/613**_  
Legal Stuff that's Boring Unless You're Louis Tully..._

* * *

**Ghostbusters** is©1984 Columbia Pictures. **Ghostbusters 2** is ©1989 Columbia Pictures **The Real Ghostbusters** is ©1986 Columbia Pictures Television and DiC Productions. **Extreme Ghostbusters** is ©1997 Columbia Pictures Television and Adelaide Productions.

I know it's been a while, sorry about that. Note that this story was written two years before the video game was even announced. Please keep this in mind when considering "oversights" in upcoming chapters.

**

* * *

  
Prelude  
September 1998

* * *

**

Josiah Nodus paced around the room. He was feeling almost human...as close as he still could to anger and frustration.

_"At the Cusp of Oranos, the Stars Will Seek Judgement  
The Twelve stand Marked by their Destinies  
The Five Who Are One Will Stand United Against Them  
And then, When the Enigma Is Revealed  
They Will Stand United with the Restless Warrior  
And Secure the Destiny of Hermes,  
Thus the Ascension of the Children of the Twelve..."_

_The Ghostbusters fullfilled their role in the Judgement, as I knew they would--but the Five Who Are One must also be instrumental to the Ascension. But what is that role?! None of them are Lord Gemini...none of their successors are Lord Gemini...none of their children are Lord Gemini..._

_I came here to find these answers...and after seven years I have few answers and even more questions than I started with. Why has so much gone wrong? I foresaw Egon Spengler embracing his destiny as the apprentice of Sarim-Lar...I foresaw the Melnitz woman finding happiness with that dolt Tully...I foresaw the death of Peter Venkman..._

__

And none of these things occured

It confused him. And confusion was the one sensation he could not abide. Confusion was caused by _not knowing_. And Knowledge was his reason for existing. Confusion was an affront to his very nature.

An alarm buzzed, and called for his attention. "The sample?"

He quickly opened the gateway to his extradimensional laboratory...and for a split second, the human being he had once been reasserted itself long enough to cause a gasp of amazement.

Over six years before, he had obtained a small fragment of one of the Zodiac avatars--in specific, the one belonging to the Avatar of Gemini. It had been his hope at the time that it might prove useful in his research...but it had proven useless. It's energy had slowly dwindled to near nothing over the years...

Until now.

The room was filled with orange light.

"What...does this mean?!"

* * *

**End Prelude**

* * *

**October 28, 1998**

* * *

"One thing is for certain..." Professor Egon Spengler remarked as he placed a kiss on the forehead of his wife of five months. "It will be quite a feat to make your birthday more interesting than my last one..."

Janine Melnitz Spengler pushed a red hair out of her eyes, and gave him a mischievous look. "What makes you say that?"

"Last year I hadn't seen my three best friends in six years. You not only arranged to get them to New York for my fortieth birthday, you did it without letting myself or the younger Ghostbusters on to the scheme."

She placed her head against his chest, once more just taking a minute to listen to his heart beat.

"Janine?"

"I love you, you know that?" she said, running a hand through his blond hair.

"I think that's well established. Between getting married after an absurd amount of years up to and including last night's..." Egon paused and a smirk appeared on his face "...experiments."

"Egon..." she moved up to look him straight in the eye. "I'm late."

"Late?" he asked, not following yet. "Did we forget the phone bill again?"

Janine rolled her eyes. "Egon...why did ancient humans decide to adopt months into their calendars?"

"The word month is derived from 'Moon', and the month approximates the twenty-eight day revolution period of Earth's Moon about the planet. " he answered.

"Why?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. Janine didn't usually ask him things like this when they were naked in bed. "Well, it was useful for measuring and predicting certain natural processes that were tied to lunar revolution, such as the tides, and other cycles that followed in proximity, such as the menstrual cycle of the human female..."

"That one right there, Egon." she placed a finger on his mouth. "That's what's late."

He was speechless for thirty full seconds, as the implication of what she was saying started to sink in. "How late?" he finally said.

"More than enough to make a doctor appointment for today--it's run like clockwork since I was fifteen, except for a while when the Lotsabucks was screwing up my system."

He lay back, and possibly the widest grin she'd ever seen him have appeared on his face. "Well, Peter did say we had to make up for lost time..."

"I thought about waiting to tell you until after the appointment, but I couldn't..." she kissed him. "I took one of those disposable tests yesterday, though you can't really rely on those things..."

"What did it say?" he couldn't help but ask.

"That we're gonna be looking for Baby's First Chemistry Set soon..." she replied.

He laughed deeply and heartily, and embraced her, turning them both in the bed to a new position, with her underneath him.

"Careful, Egon...this is how we got in this predicament..." she said teasingly.

"I love you, you know that?" Egon said to her, and then went on to show it...

* * *

**That Afternoon**

* * *

Ray Stantz ducked right as the giant penguin squalked and pecked at him again. "I'll get you yet, Dude!!!" it snarled angrily.

"A little help here!!!" Ray shouted.

"Be with you in a sec, Doctor Stantz!!!" Roland Jackson called back, another giant penguin trying to peck him to death.

"Now I remember why I hated the second Batman movie..." Garrett Miller smirked, taking aim. His blast caught the ghost penguin. "Wak wak wak..." Garrett mocked it. "Hey, Ky, a new bird cage for Burgess here?"

Kylie Griffin threw the ghost trap. In seconds, Garrett's opponent was sucked inside.

"Hey! Look!!! Fish!!!" the Spanish-tinged voice of Eduardo Rivera called. The two remaining giant penguins turned to look.

"Duuuuuuuuuuude!!!" they cried excitedly, and run to where Eddie was holding up a giant bass.

When they were about two feet away, he stomped on the pedal of the ghost trap he'd set up, sucking the squalking creatures into its innards.

"Yuck." Eduardo said, dropping the fish back into the nearby vat.

"You okay?" Kylie asked him.

"Other than smellin' like a fish market, yeah." he replied.

"Yeah, well, I like fish..." Kylie grinned, and then kissed him.

Garrett rolled his eyes. "I think I liked them better when they pretended they hated each other."

Ray had just finished taking their fee from the guy who owned the fish market. "Bite your tongue, Garrett. Anyway, we got these Class Sixes all ready for their new home. I understand the inside of the Containment Unit is sorta cold, so maybe they'll like it."

"But what if they're really from Hoboken?" Garrett quipped. Nobody paid any attention.

* * *

**Ghostbusters Central**

* * *

Winston Zeddemore had just finished pinning up a streamer when the ECTO-1 returned.

Kaila Zeddemore, Winston's wife of almost seven years, was sitting at the reception desk, decorating the file cabinets with some banners.

Ray wandered over to Winston. "Those are looking good! Kaila, any more calls?"

Kaila mocked indignation. "What do I look like? Your secretary?"

"She's different looking." Garrett joked as he rolled from behind the ECTO-1. "Louder, shorter, redder hair. Not quite as tanned."

"And didn't Mrs. Spenger say she preferred the term 'Client Administrator' now, anyway?" Roland added.

"How was it?" Winston asked, finally climbing down the step ladder.

"Not bad at all." Ray answered. "Three Class Sixes. Giant penguins in the fish market."

"The usual." Winston nodded.

"So have you heard from Peter yet?" Ray asked.

"He called about ten minutes ago." Kaila answered. "He sprung for a rental and should be here about any time now."

Ray shook his head. "If not for that call we could've got him at the airport...too bad Dana couldn't make it, but Oscar's in school you know..."

Winston nodded. "Hard to believe that kid's ten. It seemed like only yesterday he was in diapers and Vigo wanted to possess him..."

"And next year it'll be ours in school, Winston." Kaila reminded him.

Winston sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Man, I'm gettin' old."

Ray laughed. "Ah, well, you know your parents are enjoying babysitting her today." Winston and Kaila's daughter, five year old Charlene, was in the care of her paternal grandparents, Edward and Lucille. "They didn't get to see her much when we lived out west..." Ray smiled. "And I know Aunt Lois was thrilled to get Eric today. He's too young to enjoy a birthday party yet anyway." Eric was Ray's two year-old son.

"And Charlene would've just been bored." Kaila added.

Slimer was floating around the garage, confused. He could swear he smelled food, but when he went over to where he thought he smelled it, all the packages had those words he had learned to avoid. "Steamed broccoli." He hated steamed broccoli. It scared him.

Then Slimer perked up, babbled excitedly, and flung himself at--and through--the front door. There was a loud, wet thud, and much yelling.

Winston and Ray looked at each other. "Peter's here." they said in unison.

Ray handed the ghost traps to Roland; the younger man went downstairs with them as Ray strolled to the door.

"Dammit, get off me!!! This is a new suit!!!" Peter Venkman was shouting at Slimer, trying to shoo him away.

"He's just glad to see you, Peter." Ray smiled. "He's still afraid that you're never going to come back--since we didn't for six years."

"Slime Ball, really--I'm here for a Birthday Party, not a Slime Party." Venkman said to Slimer.

Slimer babbled something, started laughing uproariously, and floated back toward where he kept smelling food.

"He said 'Does that mean you're wearing your birthday suit?'" Ray explained. "He clearly thought it was funny."

"He clearly was wrong." Venkman retorted, rolling his eyes. "Now where's the Birthday Girl? You know I gotta let her have it for this one...the Big Four Oh..."

"She's off on some secret errand with Egon." Winston said. "And you're older than she is..."

" 'Secret errand'...yeah right, there's your Birthday Suits, Ray..." Venkman chuckled, familiar Cheshire grin appearing. "And I was safely three thousand miles away from here when **I** hit that birthday. So she'll never _ever_ be able to get me back for it."

"Until 2004." Kaila quipped.

Venkman feigned confusion. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that, Kaila..."

"They're coming!!" Kylie called from upstairs, where she'd been watching the window. "I just saw Janine's car pull down Moore..."

Everyone scrambled into hiding. Ray shut down the lights.

A minute later, the door opened. A Brooklyn voice said "Aw, Gee, if this ain't the oldest gag in the book. Like the lights would be out in the middle of the day unless they were lying in wait for someone."

"I don't have any idea what you mean." the voice of Egon Spengler replied, reaching toward the light switch.

"SURPRISE!!!" they all shouted.

Despite her sarcasm, and that it was nowhere near the surprise Egon Spengler had recieved on his birthday almost a year before, Janine nevertheless smiled widely. She was, after all, in a genuinely good mood.

"Soooo..." Venkman said, grinning mischievously, sidling up to her. "October 28, 1958. The Big Four Oh. Is that a grey hair or two I see?"

"Only from dealing with children most of my adult life." she retorted.

Egon nodded and chuckled knowingly. "It was good training of a sort..."

"Here--open mine first!!!" Venkman said, sticking a package wrapped in black paper in her face. She rolled her eyes as she pulled off the card--it had a cartoony drawing of the Grim Reaper on it.

"Oh, look, Egon--an AARP membership application, and a bunch of pamphlets from Florida retirement communities..." she gave him her own mischievous look. "October 25, 2004. It's not that far away..."

Kaila chuckled. "That's what I tried to remind him of..."

Winston was going over and removing the contents of the "steamed broccoli" boxes--Slimer's eyes went wide as suddenly there was a large cake and other treats.

After they forced Janine Spengler to sit through "Happy Birthday" (badly off key, and Venkman improvising an ending of "And at least a couple more...") the members of Ghostbusters New York were relatively quiet for a few minutes.

"It's amazing how food quiets this crowd up." Garrett remarked, belching.

"Some more than others..." Kylie rolled her eyes.

"I better not eat too much..." Janine remarked. "We still got dinner with my parents tonight..."

"I don't think leftovers will be a problem..." Ray noted, as Slimer watched them all with puppy dog eyes. One lesson he remembered was Do Not Attack Birthday Cakes.

"So, er...what was the 'Secret errand'..." Kaila asked. "Or is that one of those things we're better off not knowing?"

"Doctor appointment..." Janine said simply, smirking. She gave Egon a mischievous look. "This cake is great, but it needs pickles--could you go get me some?"

Egon smirked back. "Sweet or dill?"

Roland about choked. "Pickles? Er, I hate to criticize, Mrs. Spengler, but...that's kind of..."

"Gross? Nauseating? Disgusting?" Garrett offered helpfully. "Something not even Slimer would eat?"

"I'm entitled." Janine answered. "Mom ate pickles and cake when she was pregnant with me, and I turned out fine."

"That's arguable." Venkman replied, with the ease of years verbally sparring with this woman. Then he about choked on his cake, as he started to piece together what she had just said, and the 'mystery errand' "Wait a damn minute...you said you were just at the doctor?"

Janine flung an icing-coated pickle at Venkman. It bounced off of him, but didn't hit the floor--Garrett's earlier assessment aside, it didn't seem to bother Slimer a bit.

Egon moved behind the chair she was sitting in, and put his hands on her shoulders. "Do you want to tell them, or shall I?"

She beamed. "I've been wanting to say this for far too many years, Egon. I always said motherhood was a natural instinct for me, and time to prove it: I'm pregnant."

"Oh wow..." Ray's eyes went wide, and he about dropped his cake.

"My man!!!" Winston exchanged high-fives with Egon.

Venkman adopted a facetious expression. "Gosh, so do we know who the father is?"

Slimer...yes, _Slimer_ slapped him for that one.

Kaila hugged the mother-to-be..."So how far along?"

"The doctor said about seven weeks." Janine replied. "Due date is June 13th..."

"Well, yeah, but no kid is ever born on his due date." Roland replied.

"I was." Egon replied. "Mom said it was just like a Spengler to be born exactly when he's supposed to..."

"All kidding aside, Congratulations." Venkman said, giving his old friend a bear hug. "Damn, Ziggy...you two weren't quite as fast at it as Dana and I were, but I can see you're making up for lost time."

"I suppose that's one way to put it." Egon replied.

Kylie got finished giving a congratulatory hug to the parents to be, and noticed Eduardo was very quiet. "What? This putting some thoughts into your head?"

Eduardo looked like she'd just dropped ice water down his back. "What? No...hey, I think it's cool and all, of course. But ain't no way I wanna be in that situation any time soon."

"Well, as long as you keep the Burrito Supreme wrapped, I guess you'll be okay." Garrett quipped. "But remember, it only takes once..."

"Go fall down a staircase." Eduardo retorted.

"I guess it's too early to know what it is yet, right?" Ray asked.

"Well, I assume it's a baby." Egon deadpanned.

Ray rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean...a boy or a girl."

"That'll take some ultrasounds." Janine replied. "We're not to that point yet..."

Ray nodded. "I know...so, you still have the book Liz gave you when you got married?"

"_Child Rearing the Hermetic Way_?" Janine replied. "I don't think we're intending to raise a wizard..."

"Unless she choses it on her own, of course." Egon added.

Everyone was quiet for a few minutes, letting the revelation soak in. Winston finally broke the silence "It's gonna change your life, old buddy. Trust us on this one."

"You'll have your very own needy, screaming poop machine." Venkman nodded.

Ray smiled. "No sleep, no money, constant aggravation..."

"And it's something you wouldn't trade for anything in the world." Venkman finished.

"I wouldn't have been ready for that ten years ago." Egon said, taking Janine's hand. "But just like finally marrying this incredible woman--I'm ready for it now."

"That makes two, Professor." she smiled in reply.

* * *

**The Melnitz Apartment, Canarsie**

* * *

Fritz Melnitz was cussing at a replay of the New York Giants' last game when his wife of almost five decades, Denise, came into the room. "Who was that on the phone?" he asked, noticing his wife looked...excited.

"It was Jay." she replied.

"What? She and Egon not gonna make it for dinner?"

"They'll be here." Denise smiled. "But she wanted to go ahead and tell us the news..."

"What news?"

"You're gonna be a Grandpop again, you old fool...Janine's pregnant!"

Fritz just about fell out of his chair

* * *

**Cleveland, Ohio**

* * *

Katharine Melton Spengler put down the phone. Unbidden, the tears started to come to her eyes.

_"Mom...Janine's pregnant. Some time on or around June 13, 1999...you will become a Grandmother at last"_

For so long she'd fought the feeling that she'd failed her son. That she didn't fight her husband harder, to allow Egon some relief from the crushing academic pressure they'd put him under. That because of all that drive, he would become less a man and more a computer on two legs.

That was why Katharine had known, the second she'd met her, that if anyone was going to make that not happen, it would be Janine Melnitz. She was fiesty, and stubborn, and had the energy it would take. Janine loved Egon the way Katharine had loved his father...

_Edison_ she thought to herself, pulling a picture--their wedding picture from a sunny day in 1955--off the shelf. When she first met him, Edison Spengler was a shattered man...the cruel death of his first wife had pushed him into a deep shell. And maybe, somehow, as much as Edison loved Katharine...that experience was part of what drove him to push their son away from feeling, an unspoken--maybe even unintended--message of "Do not fall in love. It can only lead to pain."

When she talked with Egon during the six years he and Janine were apart...more than ever, she saw Edison in him. The Edison she's first known. The Edison who just simply did not want to live his life.

_"Our son has become an even greater man that I ever hoped he could be Katharine..." _

She'd heard Edison's voice when their son finally married that wonderful woman. It wasn't logical...but she _knew_, in her heart, that whereever he was, Edison Spengler had realized his mistakes, and was happy for his son.

"Well, Edison...let's see what Cyrus thinks of this..." she smirked at the picture of her dead husband. She knew it was only her imagination, but she could almost swear the picture smirked back.

* * *

**December 15, 1998**

* * *

"A 'half-anniversary' party?" the ultrasound tech asked. "That's kind of unusual..."

"Tell me about it." Janine rolled her eyes. "It was kind of a sweet idea, though. Ray said 'Well, since you two are either going to be really busy or really uncomfortable on June 14th, we'll have a big party now!"

"Everything been going all right so far Janine?" Dr. Morris, the physician overseeing her pregnancy, asked.

"So far no complaints..." Janine answered. "Though I have started to get that fluttery or bubbly feeling you said might happen..."

"Typical around the third or fourth month." Dr. Morris nodded.

"Well, there's the inevitable weight gain jokes from Peter..." Egon rolled his eyes.

"And before that, the breast jokes." Janine added, similarly rolling her eyes. "He made a point to reprise every one from that time I wore those fake boobs..." she crossed her eyes and did an impression of Venkman's voice. "'in the case of a water landing, do those double as flotation devices'...'if I stand close to you and talk, will I hear an echo? "

Egon chuckled.

"Are you sure you've only been married six months?" the tech asked.

"It's a long story." Egon replied. "We've known each other for over fifteen years, but...one complication after another kept us from marrying until recently."

"Now, like everyone likes to say, we're making up for lost time..." Janine added.

The tech looked a little confused about what she was seeing. "Dr. Morris?"

Dr. Morris went over to the monitor. "Hm..."

Egon and Janine looked at each other. "Is...something wrong?" he finally asked.

Dr. Morris looked at them. "Making up for lost time, you say? More than even you thought..."

"What do you mean?" Janine asked.

"From the looks of this ultrasound...Janine, you're carrying twins."

"TWINS?!" both Spenglers said at once.

"I see seperate placentas...so I'd say it's a fraternal set...they won't be any more genetically similar than any other sibling pair..."

Morris had the tech move the ultrasound scanner a bit.

After a few minutes, she said to them "I think I even know what sex they are...if you want to know."

"A lot of people still like to be surprised." the tech noted.

"A good scientist likes to have all the available data." Egon said.

"We'd already discussed this." Janine added, feeling giddy. "Lay it on us, Doc."

"From the looks of things, I'd say it's one of each--one girl, one boy."

* * *

"Twins?" Venkman sat up in the hot tub. "You two really _are_ making up for lost time..."

_"That's what the doctor said."_ Egon replied. _"I admit, I was excited before, but now I'm...nervous. This is a little more than we anticipated."_

"You'll be fine, Spengs. You have got the biggest support system in New York City to fall back on. Ray, Winson, the Melnitzes...and all you have to do is say the word and Uncle Peter will be there too."

_"Janine is ecstatic."_ Egon said. _"She's forty years old, and this is likely to be her only pregnancy...so knowing we'll have two children instead of one is..."_ He paused. _"It's like it really is restoring some kind of balance. Like her patience is being rewarded. I..."_

"What?"

_"I'm not sure she's wrong about that, either."_

"She isn't." Venkman answered, then sighing. "Look, Buddy...I have a meeting with Jon Dennison in about an hour. I don't know if I'm gonna make it back to New York for the holidays, but if not I'll see everyone after New Year's. You take care."

After exchanging goodbyes, Venkman turned off the phone and sat it down. He looked out the picture window into the Los Angeles sky...

He loved this city, but in his heart he would always be a New Yorker--and right now, he missed it more than ever.

* * *

**January 1, 1999**

* * *

_They say two thousand zero zero, party over, oops, out of time...  
Tonight we're gonna party like it's nineteen ninety-nine..._

As Prince's song fades out, the deejay came on _"That's right, folks, it's only three hundred sixty four days until the new millenium..._"

Egon made a dismissive grumble. "Actually, mathmatically speaking, the first day of the new millenium will be January 1, 2001, not January 1, 2000..."

"Egon, in six years nobody will care." Janine rolled her eyes fondly.

The yellow Volkswagen pulled into its long-time parking spot behind Ghostbusters Central

Ray was adjusting one of the sensors on the roof rack of the ECTO-1 when they entered the garage. "Hey! Happy New Year!!!"

"Happy New Year to you too, Ray." Janine said, hugging him.

"And just think how completely different your lives are gonna be by the next New Year's Day..." Ray said amiably, wiping off his hands.

Since the Spenglers' marriage in June, Egon, Ray, and Winston had been rotating duties watching over the firehouse at night--they all agreed that at least one of them should be on hand there at all times (though actual calls were forwarded to a franchise specially commissioned for night work). Egon was now spending 2/3 of his nights with his wife, in the same apartment she'd been living in since 1995.

"Do you realize that this is actually the tenth anniversary of our defeat of Vigo the Carpathian?" Egon asked. "I realized it while we watched the festivities last night--they showed a shot of the Statue of Liberty. Curious that nobody mentioned that during the coverage..."

"Yeah, well, to some people ten years ago is ancient history, I guess..." Ray rolled his eyes. "I'll have to remind Peter of that later when I call him. Assuming he didn't remember that already, of course..."

Egon and Janine were then startled with the realization that Louis Tully, the Chief Financial Officer of Ghostbusters International, was coming down the staircase, trying to keep Slimer away from his bagel.

"What are you doing here, Louis?" Janine asked. "I thought we told you to take today off..."

Louis stammered something, then looked away.

"I asked him to come by today, just for a little while." Ray answered. "Winston'll be here in just a little bit, and there's something I want to go over when everyone's here."

The two Spenglers just looked at each other.

* * *

"Business has been increasing steadily..." Louis was telling them an hour later. "Efficiency has gone up from having a rotating staff, and the franchising operations have been paying off already--we got a special windfall when I contacted the franchise in northern Virginia, and discovered that they were actually able to pay their back franchise fees from the last seven years..."

Ray shook his head, grinning.

"So what you are telling us is..." Winston said, hoping to lead to some sort of summation.

"You are all completely in the black." Louis finished.

"How often did we hear that?" Janine asked.

"Not very." Egon replied.

"So now here's my part..." Ray answered. "I had Louis go over my own finances, too. I mean, I wasn't exactly rolling in the dough from working for a used car lot, and the Missus's job requires certain...expenses, but between some money I had socked away--my Stanford payout, some leftovers I'd invested from the big payout in the Vashnivski case--I'm now in a position to do something I've been wanting to do since I got back here."

Winston and Egon looked at each other. "What do you mean?" Winston asked.

Ray got up and walked around, clearly excited at what he was saying. "I want to do some work on this place--real, major work. Renovate the electrical system, improve the computer network...the Internet's getting big, you know, and we should be aware of that. You should see the site about us this guy named Emkow's put together...GBI should be wired for the twenty-first century. We only have two years to go on that, after all..."

"Thank you." Egon smirked.

"And yeah...somebody I know deciding to start a family plays into this too. Redo the whole second floor, even, put in a room for the kids. I can't see you and Janine staying in that little place that much longer with Twins on the way..."

"That's what we get for ending up with a June due date." Janine joked. "Gemini _is_ the sign of the twins, after all..."

"So anyway..." Ray continued. "The big change is on the third floor--I want to replace the bunk room as it is now with something a little more conducive to having a family live in it--a room for the parents, a room for the kids. And heck, I don't just mean for you guys--we'd still rotate in and out. Eric loves this old place..."

"He comes by that honestly." Winston quipped.

Ray chuckled. "Yeah, but he never gets to stay here...this way, he would every once in a while."

Winston, Egon, and Janine looked at each other. "I think I like this idea..." Winston finally said. "Charlene's already asking questions about what we do here--what better way to answer them than to show her?"

"There's always a danger factor." Egon nodded. "But if we also improve the lock-down system and the security functions of the Ecto Containment Unit, this should be minimized."

"There is a nice apartment in Soho that Shirl's been bugging me to go look at..." Janine added. "Assuming we could afford it..."

"Well, like I said the GBI franchise operation has been performing above expectations." Louis chimed in. "As a founding board member, Doctor Spengler stands to have a significant income stream to draw on..."

Ray cleared his throat. "But if we're gonna do this, we need to start now. We got six months to get things done before the Twins are born, and you're pretty much forced to move out of your current place."

Egon looked at his wife. "Janine?"

"It makes a lot of sense to me." she replied. She looked down. "And I hope that flutter means they like the idea too..."

"Winston?" Egon asked.

"You know I'm in." Winston replied. "I think I can even recommend a construction company that'll give us a good rate..." he grinned. His father, 'Big Ed' Zeddemore, owned a construction company.

"Well then, I would say that barring an objection from Peter, it's unanimous." Egon summarized.

"And even if he objects, he's still outvoted." Janine added brightly.

"Great!" Ray said. "And then after that I have some ideas for improving the proton packs..."

The three male Ghostbusters started discussing plans, and in a few minutes were going upstairs to plot strategies.

Janine chuckled something about "Boys and their toys" and stood up, moving her now noticably swollen body out of the chair, and walked down the stairs to the reception desk.

Louis just shook his head sadly as she left, effectively oblivious to the fact he was still there. Mixed feelings swirled in his head as he watched her go...

He was genuinely happy for her, there was no doubt about that. But it also brought bittersweet memories of the times when he thought...he _wanted_...to be sharing this experience with her the way Egon Spengler was. That even though it was for the best that it didn't happen that way, it still felt like fate was rubbing in how wrong Janine and Louis were for each other: they tried for a good year before giving up. Then she marries Egon...and practically comes back from the honeymoon pregnant.

_I guess some things just work the way they're supposed to...but why can't it ever work out for me?_

* * *

**March 1999**

* * *

Janine Melnitz Spengler looked at herself in the mirror. She was now a good six months along, and the children inside her were moving, and shifting, and kicking her. _One of them seems to kick pretty hard too..._ Janine thought to herself. _Probably some DNA from my side of the family. We Melnitzes do have the attitude..._

Not for the first time in the last year and a half, it was a moment she wished she could trap in amber to save forever.

She was only a year out of high school when her sister Doris had announced that she was pregnant. The fact that her nephew Victor Irwin was now, in fact, technically old enough to be siring children of his own was a thought Janine tried not to dwell on...it only seemed to highlight how late she was having her children. _Though I'm having two...I finally beat Dee in something_ she smirked.

As Egon had mentioned to Venkman, the fact that this would most likely be her only pregnancy had Janine savoring every second of it. Even when she woke up feeling sick...even when her back started to protest under the unusual weight it was carrying around...she felt like she had no right to complain about any of it.

But she had to face it...she couldn't help but be worried...

She finally said as much to her husband when she slipped into bed.

"Worried?" he replied. "About what?"

She inhaled. "Egon...I'm not a young woman in the prime of my life. I'm gonna be forty-one not long after the Twins are born...and..."

"Janine, the doctor said you're in perfect health." Egon reassured her. "That there are twenty-five year olds that aren't as fit to give birth as you are..."

"Perfect..." she repeated the word. "But that's what I'm worried about. Egon, I'm not perfect--but I tried to be once. I let myself be warped and twisted...I still can't believe I ever did that. But I did."

Egon knew what she was talking about. _Makeoverus Lotsabucks_...a parasitic vanity spirit. It had changed her over a period of years...turning her into some kind of freakish caricature of her true self in the quest for "perfection." It was almost too late when Egon and the other Ghostbusters discovered this...

"I was altered, inside and out. I mentioned how it was the only time in my life my Monthly Visitor wasn't right on schedule...I was worried for a long time that maybe the bitch had...broken something. Well...okay, now we know for sure the plumbing works...but what if there's something else broken? What if there's some damage left...that might hurt the babies? Or get passed along to them?"

Egon exhaled deeply. "I hadn't thought of that, to be honest. I've been more concerned about my own worries in that regard--think of all the things I've endured over the years. I got phased into the Netherworld. Posessed and transformed more than once--I've been a cartoon character and a werechicken. So yes, I've had my own fears that some sort of psychokinetic or genetic damage has occured that might be passed along..."

He embraced her tightly. "But we've had every test run, and every result so far has not indicated anything other than completely healthy offspring. And remember that Ray, Winston, and Peter have been through just about everything we have, and that all of their children are healthy and normal--and not all of their wives have been unscathed by the paranormal either..."

She smiled, and felt a kick from inside. She just couldn't help but think it was a statement of agreement. "You're right...and somehow just hearing you say it makes it feel better. Though it's not going to make the worries all go away..."

"It shouldn't." Egon admitted. "But worrying about things that have already happened, and cannot be changed, is counterproductive. At least until it's possible to change time..."

"And how far away are you from that?"

"Well, I did read an interesting article on temporal integrity theory last week..."

She laughed, and playfully put her hand over his mouth to shut him up.

* * *

**June 11, 1999  
Los Angeles, California**

* * *

Peter Venkman stifled a large yawn as he looked at the clock..._10 PM? That'd be like two in the morning back in the Apple. Heh...explains a lot, actually--my body's been on LA time my whole life and I didn't even realize it..._

He heard Oscar trying to convince his mother that he deserved a later bed time, because No Eleven Year Old In The World has to go to bed at Ten O'Clock. It was probably a violation of the Geneva Conventions or something, ect... when the phone rang.

"Peter would you get that?!" he heard Dana shout, but Venkman was already halfway there. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the caller ID...

_Ghostbusters Central  
(212) 555-2020_

"Peter Venkman..." he answered simply.

_"I just got the call from Katharine two minutes ago."_ Ray Stantz answered.

"I'll be out as quick as I can manage it." Venkman replied.

Dana came out of Oscar's room. "Who was it?" she asked.

"It was Ray. It's time." he replied, dialing a number on his cel phone. "Jon? It's Pete...I told you I was gonna need a charter flight back to New York soon? Well, the time is right now. Yes, right now..."

After he hung up, he kissed Dana hard. "Give them my love, Peter." she told him. "And my prayers--they've been through too much already to have anything go wrong..."

* * *

**June 12, 1999  
2:15 AM  
New York City**

* * *

The yellow Volkswagen screeched to a halt. Within seconds, Professor Egon Spengler and his wife climbed out. "I'll get it parked--don't worry about a thing."

A nod was the only sign that Egon heard his mother, sitting in the yellow car's driver seat, as he led Janine inside the hospital.

Katharine sighed as she watched them go. She'd appeared at their doorstep a month before, insisting she had cleared things in Cleveland and wasn't going to be going anywhere until probably after New Years 2000.

When Janine had abruptly awakened an hour ago, Katharine had been there to handle getting the Melnitzes and Ghostbusters Central called and the car ready to go as Egon saw to Janine, and called the doctor. Katharine had driven them to the hospital.

She looked up at the night sky before heading to the parking garage. _It's time, Edison..._

* * *

She didn't expect to feel almost...disappointed when her water broke. A strange sense of disappointment that this meant her long-awaited pregnancy was soon going to be over. That no matter how close she stayed with the children she was now about to give birth too, they would never literally be a part of her the way they had been for the last nine months...

"Looks like they're coming early..." Janine cracked.

"What do you mean by that?" one of the nurses asked, amazed that this woman was still making jokes during labor.

"Due date is tomorrow..."

"If it makes you feel any better, Mrs. Spengler, it's not unheard during first pregnancies for the labor to last that long."

"Bite your damn tongue." Janine retorted.

Egon finally made it into the room, having finished the paperwork that required his immediate attention. "I'm here, Janine. Er...how are you doing?"

"Not bad..." she joked blithely. "Though I was beginning to wonder..."

"The paperwork is ridiculous." Egon nodded. "I was afraid by the time I made it in here they'd be in kindergarten..."

He took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. "Unfortunately, the evolution of life on this planet has limited my ability to take any of this pain for my own. But I would if I could."

She smiled as best she could...his words causing a surge of warmth in her soul. "I know..." she replied.

* * *

**4:39 AM**

* * *

"You know I can get into trouble if anybody finds out about this..."

_"That's why I'm paying you so handsomely."_

"Er...right. Well, the woman you told me to report on just got checked into the hospital two hours ago"

_"Janine Spengler?"_

"Yeah...the Ghostbuster woman."

_"She's in labor, isn't she?"_

"That's correct Sir..."

_"Thank you. You will find your bonus in your mailbox by tomorrow."_

Josiah Nodus hung up the phone, and sat impassive for several minutes.

* * *

**June 12, 1999  
9:19 AM**

* * *

Venkman shook off sleep as he got off the charter plane. Fortunately, Winston Zeddemore was there waiting. They shared a brief hug.

"Nothing yet." Winston said before Venkman could even ask. "She's been in labor for like seven hours now..."

Venkman shook his head. "May still be a long way to go...Jess came quick, but Dana still reminds Oscar how long he took every time he acts up..."

Winston nodded. "Charlene was the same too...I think one of the reasons babies are so cute is that it makes the Mom forget how much it hurt, and keeps her from murdering the Dad as soon as she can..."

"Where's Ray?"

"On his way to the hospital seperate." Winston answered. "He had to wait until Roland got up to watch HQ."

Winston and Venkman arrived to find a large group congregating there. Katharine Spengler, Fritz and Denise Melnitz, Doris Irwin and her son Victor. Janine's old friends Shirl Johnson and Marie Cavendish. And of course Ray...

"Glad you could make it." Ray said happily as he bearhugged Venkman.

"I can't believe it..." Venkman cracked. "This time, the whole gang's here..."

"We sent a nurse to let them know we're all here." Ray told him. "Though of course it's up to them if..."

Almost as if on cue, Egon appeared. Unsurprisingly, he looked exhausted. His mother gave him a quick hug before the Ghostbusters took their turn.

"There's been progress, but it's been slow..." he finally told them. "Since she's never been pregnant before, they don't have any comparisons other than what Denise and Doris have told them about their experiences..."

"So what does this mean? Is there a problem?" Marie asked.

"As of yet, no..." Egon finally answered, taking off his glasses to rub his temples. "Everything is within the parameters of first deliveries...but if there's no appreciable progress in twelve hours, we may have to consider Cesarian..."

"What about the babies?" Denise asked.

"There's no indication of any problems..." Egon replied. "It's just going to take time..."

* * *

**June 13, 1999  
1: 15 AM**

* * *

"SHIT!!!" she howled as another contraction hit. "Even with the painkillers this still F***ING HURTS!!!"

"They can't use the most effective drugs for fear of causing a reaction in one of the children..." Egon pointed out.

"DON'T TRY TO BE RATIONAL WITH ME RIGHT NOW!!!" she replied.

"You're doing just fine, Janine..." Doctor Morris said. "It can be anytime now...just keep breathing..."

She exhaled heavily, and her best to relax as the contraction faded. _It might be the last time...the big push is coming..._

One of the nurses mopped Janine's brow.

It had been long and difficult...but around dinnertime, the doctors had told Egon to take her for a walk around the delivery area. She'd got to see her family and friends...and Venkman didn't even make any remarks about what a horrible mess she looked, probably for fear of being bludgeoned to death by a woman in labor wielding her IV frame as a weapon.

_Valid fear too..._

She looked up at her husband...he looked so worried, and tired. _Damn, if that's how wore out he looks, I don't even wanna THINK about how I look right now..._

"I love you..." he said.

"I love you too..." she replied. "Even though you did _this_ to me..." she added with a weary smile.

"If necessary I'll remind you that there were no complaints at the time." he replied with a smirk.

"Janine..." the doctor finally said. "It's not going to take a lot more. Time for the big push...you ready."

She squeezed Egon's hand. He nodded.

She'd been in pain for most of the last twenty four hours. She was ready for this to be over. _Ready to meet my son and daughter..._

She pushed...the agony intensified...like her body was trying to rip apart....like every nerve of her body was on fire. The pain reached a crescendo...

...And then eased with a swiftness that caused her to question reality.

"1:30 AM" she heard one of the attendant nurses call out. "On the dot..."

"Wh..." Egon tried to say something, but the words were stuck in his throat.

"It's the girl." Doctor Morris finally said. "But we're not out of the woods yet...her brother's still waiting for takeoff..."

Egon looked dazed. He shook his head almost violently to collect his sense. "She's...she's right, Janine. One more time...one more push..."

Janine didn't want to push...she wanted to see her child...but Egon and the doctor were right. _One more push..._

The pain resumed once more...a little duller, but still considerable...and when it too faded away, she felt herself at the cusp of unconsciousness...her body so wanted to let it, to sleep. But...

"1:35 AM" the nurse called out.

"You...you did it..." Egon said, barely able to breathe.

"And that's the boy." Doctor Morris confirmed.

The nurses finished cleaning the newborns, and taking the necessary measurements for the records. Another was checking Janine's vital signs, making sure everything was all right.

"Textbook." the doctor said. "Janine and Egon Spengler, I think it's time you and your children got aquainted..."

"Slowly, Mrs. Spengler..." one of the nurses said as they moved her into a more upright position.

There were tears in Janine's eyes when they handed her the bundled pink blanket. All the moments from the last year and a half she'd wanted to trap in amber, this one outstripped them by far. She wanted to memorize every feature on that tiny wriggling face...that bald, wriggling face that was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

_Some day I'm gonna have quite a story to tell you and your brother, aren't I? How it took sixteen years after I met your Dad for you two to get here...the days I thought this day would never come. But if that you ever doubt that dreams can ever come true, Kiddo, I'll remind you that you literally _are _a dream come true... _

Egon, meanwhile, had spent the last few minutes convincing himself that this was all really happening. When Doctor Morris handed him that bundled powder blue blanket, however, it all became _real_

He was struck immediately how familiar the small face looked. How strongly it resembled his own baby pictures, taken both during his own infancy...and more recent one, taken some ten years ago during one of the Ghostbusters' more bizarre cases. But there was one obvious difference: the whisps of hair on his son's head had a distinctly reddish hue.

_A wise man once told me that red is the color of passion, and that it would only be through the unlocking of that passion that I would unlock my destiny. This is what he meant, wasn't it? That if I'd denied my true self...denied all the passion in my soul...niether you nor your sister would be here. This is my destiny. This is our destiny._

He felt the tears coming. He had no wish to stop them.

* * *

**2:30 AM**

* * *

Ray didn't even realize he'd gone to sleep until Venkman poked him hard to wake him up. "Egon!" Ray cried, realizing his old friend was in the room too, looking haggard, exhausted...but ecstatic.

"Eden Marie was born at 1:30 AM, her brother Johnathan Christopher precisely five minutes later. "

Marie Cavendish audibly inhaled. "Eden _Marie_? Oh my God...she _did_ remember..."

"Remember what?" Doris asked.

Marie shook her tired head. "Back when I told Janine that Ghostbusters was hiring a secretary...I made a joke about 'Just promise that if you get the job and marry your boss you'll name one of your kids after me...' "

There was a hearty laugh around the room as Egon recieved a heartfelt hug from everyone in turn.

" 'Christopher'?" Katharine asked. "Is that..."

Egon nodded. "Janine and I split up the naming duties. I gave our son his middle name, Christopher, from Christopher Melton--my great grandfather. Johnathan is from her side of the family..."

"My older brother." Denise Melnitz said, eyes filling with tears. "He died in Korea...I once told Jay that if she'd been a boy I mighta named her that."

"Marie, as noted, was from a promise Janine made sixteen years ago." Egon nodded in Marie Cavendish's direction. "Eden...well, in addition to being a proper Hebrew name (something Janine felt important)..." he hugged his mother. "It's similarity to 'Edison' is not unintentional."

Venkman laughed. "And heck, you even gave them 'E' and 'J' names, to boot..."

Egon chuckled. "Well...that did occur to us afterward..."

"What are we waitin' around here for?" Denise Melnitz said with noticable glee. "I think it's time we got a look at my new grandbabies..."

"_Our_ new grandbabies..." Katharine added with just as much joy.

"I can arrange that." Egon replied, with the largest smile that any of them could remember seeing on his face.

* * *

He'd had enough.

Watching them dance their pathetic human dance of emotion was making him ill.

He'd been patient, but now it was time for him to fulfill _his_ destiny...

* * *

"The doctors said to make it quick--the children have been fed, and are sleeping already, but Janine needs her rest. I..."

Egon stopped cold. A man in a black coat, his face covered by a mask sporting a featureless red visor, stood in his way.

"Nodus?!" Ray shouted.

"Were that I were only here to offer my congratulations, Professor Spengler, but that would be...inappropriate, somehow. If only you knew the irony...that in the choice you made, the choice I could never have forseen, you solved the riddle that had confounded me, in a way I never could have anticipated. You have my appreciation..."

He gestured. A glowing forcefield appeared, blocking the hall.

"And now, the Gemini twins will be introduced to _their_ destiny..."

Cold, horrific realization gripped Egon's soul. A dark fear, darker than any he had felt before, _He wants my children!?!?_ "Over my dead body!!!" Egon snarled with a fury he'd never known himself capable of, and leaped for Nodus, murder in his eyes...

But the forcefield repelled him.

"Son of a bitch!!!" Venkman snarled.

"Call Roland at HQ!!!" Winston howled, throwing his cell phone to Doris Irwin.

Lacking any other weapon, the four Ghostbusters--as well as Victor Irwin--began to hammer the shimmering forcefield with nothing but their fists.

* * *

Janine Spengler fought off the sleep. She knew she shouldn't fight it...the doctors told her she needed to sleep...but she didn't _want_ to sleep. She didn't want to miss a second, didn't want to stop watching the two newborns lying peacefully nearby.

They were both so beautiful...she was, for only a fraction of a second, worried that when Egon handed her their son for the first time, that somehow it wouldn't seem as special as the instant she first held Eden...but she was wrong. It was different, but no less precious. Johnathan was no less beautiful. She loved him every bit as much.

As Janine fed the Twins for the first time, she and Egon laughed and cried as they'd made observations...things like John's "little tiny Egon hands" and Eden's scrunched-up face being very much the image of Janine's when she didn't want to get up in the morning.

She was anxious for Egon to get back. She wanted to see her parents, her sister, and the three men who were her brothers in all but the most literal sense of the word. She anticipated the joy on their faces when seeing Eden and John Spengler for the first time.

But when the door opened, it wasn't Egon, or her parents. It was a man in a dark, long coat and a featureless red visor.

"Nodus?!" she cried, every instinct starting to scream fear into her.

He just stood there for a moment.

"What do you want?!" she screamed.

"...never anticipated this..." he finally said, and shook his head with impatience. "I cannot turn back now."

He moved to the cribs. "Your children have been chosen for a higher destiny, Janine Melnitz, one far greater than a fallen intellect like him and a harlot like you could have ever given them."

"Over my dead body..." she snarled, her eyes flashing with murderous anger.

"He said very much the same thing." Nodus retorted.

Her body was aching, still weak from the most exhaustive ordeal it had faced since, probably, the day it had been born itself...but Janine Melnitz Spengler lept for Nodus's throat with a speed and fury that shocked him...

...But not fast enough to avoid the blast that sent her flying back.

Nodus gestured, and the two cribs began to float to him. The newborns began to howl in disapproval.

"John...Eden..." Janine muttered helplessly to herself, as she screamed at her body to move...

But it could no longer obey.

* * *

"JOHN! EDEN! JANINE!!!" Egon howled, slamming the forcefield again and again.

There was a new noise--the PKE meter that Egon was still wearing out of years of habit.

But it was Ray who plucked it out Egon's pocket. "What in the hell?"

Egon panted for a few seconds, as Winston and Venkman continued to slam the field. Egon grabbed the meter, enough rationality remaining in his exhausted, fearful mind that he realized that this might have something to do with Nodus and his plot.

"Delta energy pattern?!" Egon finally spat out. "Temporal flux is building...but I've never seen a harmonic like this before...what in the name of hell is..."

He didn't finish the thought. The meter began to smoke and pop. He dropped it, and it shattered into a hundred pieces...

...That stopped motionless in midair.

"What the f***?!" Venkman screamed, as the world around them began to blur and fade.

Egon Spengler uttered one last feral howl...and the last thing he experienced was looking at his right arm appearing, for a fraction of a second, in two places, like looking through a camera lense that had lost it's focus...

...Before a wall of white oblivion claimed them all.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

Kaila Zeddemore developed by Brian Reilly

* * *

#34200-50606y  
067


	2. Chapter 2

**Ghostbusters 2000  
GEMINI RISING  
PART TWO**

By Fritz Baugh  
GBI Case File 0-1999-16/613

**Elsewhere...Or Perhaps Elsewhen...**

She staggered...like she'd been hit in the stomach...

_Twelve houses of the Qizzonu...what was that?!_

She wasn't surprised when she heard a new noise fading into her earshot--the distinct wheezing groan that signalled the arrival of one of the few beings who could comprehend, never mind reach, her solitary domicile.

She gathered her purple cloak as the blue shape solidified: an exotic chair, with various strange items attached to it. In the chair was sitting an old man, the eyes under his mop of unruly grey hair hidden by a red-tinted set of ether goggles.

"You've felt it, then?" she asked him.

"Even before every instrument I had went completely haywire." the old man responded. "As they said in the era of my childhood, there's a massive disturbance in the Force..."

She gestured...feeling weaker..._Intelligo tempus_...

She staggered again, as the man produced a device that looked vaguely like a Ghostbuster PKE meter, a blue and white case with flashing arms at the side. He muttered something unprintable as the screen faded to an error message...

_Error: Delta Energy Level Exceeds Sensor Tolerance Parameter._

"Delphia?" he asked.

"There's...there's a massive tear developing in the timestream..." she finally said..."Something is trying to rip history apart...and..." her eyes narrowed. "The Ascension has been compromised..."

She gestured again, more frantically. "The disruption is centered on one of the crucial events...the twenty-first day of Gemini...in the Ninth Year of the Age of Aquarius..."

The old man nodded. "June 13, 1999."

**June 13, 1999  
Central Park**

"...Must look forward to the new challenges in the coming new Millenium." His Honor, the Mayor of New York City, Winston Zeddemore, told the enraptured crowd.

He first assumed office in 1994; technically, he'd been the running mate of the 1993 mayoral candidate for the New York Independant Party that had defeated one-term Republican Arnie Lapinski, but one day after assuming office the mayor had up and quit, leaving Winston in charge of the Greatest City on Earth.

It had proven a good move.

Winston had proven a popular and effective leader, and skated to easy election in his own right in 1997. His sensible policies made him popular in the heavily historically Democratic city, and it was even rumored that President Clinton had offered him a Cabinet position. Winston had reportedly refused as to fulfill his obligations to New York, and was expected to easily win re-election in 2001 should he run.

Not far away sat Winston's mother, elderly but beaming with pride as always for her fifty-four year old son...

"And in conclusion..." Winston continued, flipping a page of his notes. He sported a mustache as he had save a brief period in the late Eighties, and his hair was still dark save for two white streaks. But he didn't get to finish the sentence...

There was a sudden howling of wind, and the skies suddenly began to twirl with an ominous indigo light.

Winston had seen enough dimensional vortices in his time to know one. He grabbed one of his aides. "Call the Ghostbusters--now!!!" he commanded.

_

* * *

_

It's not right...

_Something has happened..._

_It's all wrong..._

_Romulus, where are you?_

* * *

The ECTO-1A arrived at the scene, lights flashing and sirens wailing. The famous logo--a cartoon ghost holding up two fingers, covered with a red slash--adorned the doors and hood of the vehicle.

A rotund fellow who looked like he'd accidentally done a face plant into a tackle box got out of the driver's seat. He had dark, greasy hair and beady eyes--the nametag on his tan flight suit read "TATE" "Now there's something you don't see every day..."

A woman with short chestnut hair gave him a dirty look as she studied the device in her hand--a black box sporting two arms with blinking lights. Her jumpsuit's name tag read "DREW" "You recieving telemetry at Central, Nat?"

_"Affirmative, Moira"_ a very young-sounding voice replied.

"Can you hear Franky fart from there, Little Dude?" the tall, lanky young man who got out of the passenger seat quipped. He was of African descent, and sported thick dreadlocks. "LOWELL" was the name on his jump suit.

_"Only if he ate some of Doctor Stantz's chili again, Jack."_ Nat returned.

"Lowell, Nat, I say this from the bottom of my heart--f*** you both and the horses that got you into college..."

The fourth member of the team--a young woman of clearly Latino descent and an athletic build, was ignoring them as she opened the tail door of the ECTO-1A. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I want my proton pack." "DELGADO" was the name adorning her jumpsuit.

Franky Tate, Jack Lowell, Moira Drew, and Carla Delgado were the newest members of Ghostbusters--they'd been recruited a few years ago when, between advancing age and the preoccupations of their former comrades, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler knew they would need help to continue the legacy of the world's first Professional Paranormal Investigators and Eliminators.

The four twentysomethings walked over to Mayor Zeddemore. Most of the rest of his entourage and audience had fled, but--as the foursome well knew--Winston had faced worse than this in his time, starting with Gozer the Gozarian fifteen years before.

"Hello adoring public!!!" Lowell called cheerfully to what few people were left. "Ghostbusters 2000, your spook smashers for the new millenium, have arrived!!!"

"I keep telling you, that name is gonna be so dated in eighteen months, tops..." Franky grumbled.

"Mister Zeddemore!" Moira called. "When did this start?"

"Pretty much ten seconds before I put the call into Janine..."

"I'm getting an increasing PK sine curve here, Nat. Has Doctor Spengler been contacted?" Moira asked.

_"Affirmative"_ Nat replied_. "He and Doctor Stantz should be arriving shortly..."_ There was a pause and then Nat broke in_ "I don't think that will be necessary, Sir...Moira's team has the situation well in hand..."_

Winston rolled his eyes. "Louis?"

_"Er...yes, Sir."_

Franky and Lowell exchanged incredulous looks. "I wish he'd get it through his head he ain't a Ghostbuster..."

"He's even more dangerous with a pack than you are, Franky." Lowell agreed.

Franky flipped him off, then unholstered his neutrona wand.

_"Spengler on-line here..."_ a deeper voice broke in._ "Moira, are you getting a five-seven-two curve in the third harmonic?"_

"Can we stop yakking and blast something?" Franky puffed impatiently.

"Yes, Doctor..." Moira replied. "That's exactly the reading I'm getting here..."

_"Hm...."_

"I don't like that 'Hm...' Egon..." Winston said.

_"The harmonic is consistant with delta wave emission..."_

_"_Translate that into English for us, Doctor." Lowell asked. "Then put it into words with less than three syllables for Franky to understand."

_"Delta waves are a property of chronal flux..."_

"Time dihalation." Moira added simply.

"Great..." Carla quipped. "I can think of worse things than Micheal J. Fox and a Delorean popping out of that..."

The swirling maelstrom flared, and a blast of orange light shot to the ground, maybe a hundred yards away from them, splitting the ground open...

..And then the maelstrom was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.

Three neutrona wands were at the ready. Moira stepped forward first, PKE meter still blinking. "The PK surge has subsided...but I'm still picking up some residual readings...and...I think..."

"Think what, Fussypants?" Carla teased.

"It looks like there might be someone there..."

_"Investigate..."_ Egon's voice prompted_. "But be careful..."_

Winston, ignoring his aide, grabbed a spare proton pack from the back of the ECTO-1A. "I think maybe this calls for an experience Ghostbusting hand, don't you?"

"The more the merrier, Yerhoner..." Lowell smirked.

It took a moment for the smoke around the blast point to clear...the four tan-clad Ghostbusters and the Mayor moved forward, cautiously but with determination...

"The PK is still fading... Nat commented. "Do you see something?"

Franky's eyes lit up. "Hello Nurse!!!"

"It's...a girl!" Carla inhaled.

_"A girl?"_ Nat's voice came back.

_"_Female, Caucasian, I'd estimate 173 centimeters tall, with long blonde hair..." Moira reported dutifully. "She's clothed in...a rather eccentric ensemble with a light blue blouse and mini-skirt, with a pink vest and tie..."

"Babealicious if you ask me." Lowell whistled approvingly.

"And those big clunky earrings would make Mrs. Tully jealous..." Carla chuckled.

"Appears to be breathing...I'd estimate twenty-five years in age..."

"And at least a 36D..." Franky smirked.

Carla smacked him. "Keep your mind on your work, Tacklebox..."

"Aw, don't get jealous." Franky stuck out his tongue.

Carla smacked him again.

Winston stared at the girl...a creepy feeling grabbing the back of his neck...he'd dealt with odd things off and on for the last fifteen years, but this was the first time he could remember being struck with such a strong case of deja vu...

"Johnathan..." the woman called deliriously. "Romulus..."

"Nodus!!!" she exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright.

"Just hold it right there, Madame Mysterious..." Lowell said firmly.

The woman regarded them with a gaze that unnerved them...those blue eyes posessed a distinct intensity. She stood up about as gracefully as possible, and studied them with a strangely familiar expression. "Ghostbusters..." she mumbled, pulling a small electronic device, looking vaguely like a pager, from her vest pocket and studying some readings. "June 13, 1999...that much has been successful..."

She looked at them again, giving them a look Winston couldn't help but realize reminded him of the same look Egon got when one of his molds went bad. "This is worse than we thought...the entire causal nexus has been compromised..."

" 'Causal nexus'? I'd say we'd found Doctor Spengler a date...if he ever dated, that is..." Franky grumbled. "Can I shoot her now?"

"Ernie Hudson?" the woman suddenly exclaimed, her gaze fixed squarely on Mayor Zeddemore.

"I'm afraid you have me confused for someone else..." Winston replied to the comment.

"The resemblance is astounding..." the woman remarked. "I take it then...you are Winston Zeddemore?"

"You have me at a disadvantage..."

"Complete integrity breakdown..." she started mumbling to herself again. "Replacement of personalities with semi-fictionalized counterparts..."

"Please let me shoot her now." Franky pleaded. "I don't care how hot she is--this is getting annoying..."

"Mister Zeddemore--I need to talk to Professor Egon Spengler." she said firmly. "It is a matter of utmost importance..."

" "Professor'?" Moira repeated with bemusement.

"Nat, tell Egon he's about to have company..." Winston said after a few seconds.

_"I look forward to it, Winston."_ Egon himself replied. The woman's expression deepened.

"Looks like you get a meeting with Doctor S, Baby." Lowell grinned. "Though I warn you, I hear from the grapevine he's a tough nut to crack...Miss..."

"For now..." the woman answered, pulling out a pair of red eyeglasses from her vest pocket. "Call me Pollux..."

**Ghostbusters Headquarters  
One Hour Later**

The ECTO-1A and a mayoral limosine approached the corner of Varrick and Moore; Moira thought for sure she heard the mysterious Pollux exhale with relief when the former firehouse of the Hook and Ladder Number Eight came into view.

Pollux cocked an eyebrow in a conspicously familiar manner when she noticed Moira noticing. "I was afraid for a moment it wouldn't be there..."

And was shocked as they drove right past it.

"Isn't that...your headquarters?" she asked.

"That old dump?" Lowell replied. "Babe, Ghostbusters outgrew that place years ago--we got a real nice place now."

After a drive, they reached an ornate building at Thirtieth Street and Seventh Avenue. A large sign reading "Ghostbusters International" identified the complex.

The ECTO-1A pulled into position in the garage. An angry looking woman with a short red bobbed haircut scowled at them as they got out of the car.

Moira was certain of what she heard this time: Pollux inhaled sharply.

"...I've already got five calls from the TV stations and the Mayor's staff tryin' to find out what was going on, and on top of that..." the older woman started to complain with a distinct Brooklyn accent.

"Don't let the Mayoral staff get your dander up, Janine..." Mayor Zeddemore said with some amusement as he walked into the garage behind the Ghostbusters. "I think I can keep them in line..."

Pollux shook her head, and looked at her strange device. . "Not just any Annie Potts incarnation, that one..."

A young boy no older than twelve came up to Moira and Lowell. He had spiky brown hair atop a large forehead, and was wearing a flight suit that matched theirs. "CARSON" was the name on the chest patch.

"This is the anomaly?" he finally asked.

"That's her, Nat." Lowell replied, pulling out and lighting a suspicious looking cigarette. "Hot enough to put you through puberty all at once, huh?"

Nat Carson gulped and blushed.

Janine was hugging her old friend. "Well, since it's you all is forgiven. Not too often Hizzoner the Lord High Mayor Zeddemore comes to visit all the little people he forgot about on his way up."

"You're looking good, Janine." Winston replied.

"I hate to cut off the reunion, Mr. Zeddemore, but it's becoming more imperative by the moment that I..." Pollux interrupted.

"Just hold yer damn horses, Missy, I..." Janine turned to face the rude newcomer, and her voice trailed off as she saw the tall, blonde woman for the first time.

They stared at each other silently for thirty seconds.

Pollux broke the silence, a strangely...contrite tone in her voice. "I..apologize for my abruptness, M..." she bit her lip to stop herself. "Miss Melnitz. But..."

"Miss Melnitz? Who's Miss Melnitz?" Franky asked, picking his nose with a screwdriver.

Carla elbowed him in the gut. "You never study...'Melnitz' was Mrs. Tully's maiden name..."

Janine looked--and truth, felt--slightly embarrassed at the revelation.

Pollux suddenly looked ready to re-experience her most recent meal in reverse. "Bunsen's Burner, this is worse than I ever imagined..."

"Now what is that supposed to mean?" Janine asked, eyes narrowing.

"You're married to Louis Tully?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Pollux took her eyeglasses off and rubbed her eyes, her temple pinched in what looked an awful lot like pain. "You're not married to Professor Spengler."

" 'Professor' Spengler? You mean..." Janine stopped, a blush coming into her cheeks. "Why in the world would I be married to Egon Spengler?"

There was a round of laughter among the younger Ghostbusters.

"I can't imagine Doctor Spengler married to anybody..." Franky brayed. "That guy has a broom lodged so far up his ass he could sweep the floor with his nosehair."

"Drop dead, Tate!" Janine shouted. "I don't know who you are, Miss Tall, Blonde, and Leggy, but you have a lot of gall to come in here and ask a bunch of stupid questions like that!!! I aughta flatten you right there!!!"

"Janine, this is our case..." Winston went over to her, trying to calm her down.

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this abuse! I'm taking a coffee break, and if you don't like it you can cram it up your asses!!!" Janine finished, slamming the door to the break room behind her as she stormed off.

The younger Ghostbusters were all flabbergasted.

"Daaaaaaaaamn..." Lowell remarked.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear a nerve was touched." Moira mused.

"It was." Mayor Zeddemore replied after a pause. He looked at Pollux. "But how did you know anything about that?"

"There's something to that scene?" Carla gasped. "But I thought she and Mr. Tully have been hitched for almost five years..."

"You aughta have seen them slobbering all over each other in the break room the other day. Old people making out--it was gross." Franky pantomimed gagging.

Winston shook his head. "When Ghostbusters first started, Janine had a thing for Egon. Bad. But when we broke up they lost track of each other...and he just plain ignored her when we got back together. Louis didn't..." he looked at the blonde woman. "But how did you know about that? It's not exactly common knowledge--I thought by now pretty much only the five of us knew about that?"

Pollux looked at him, intense eyes grave. "You might say, Mister Zeddemore, that that knowledge is encoded into the fiber of my being. I need to see Egon Spengler. Now."

"Easily arranged." A deep voice cut into the chatter.

Pollux inhaled deeply before turning to face the speaker, like she needed to prepare herself.

Dr. Egon Spengler was the brain behind the founding of Ghostbusters Inc. Older than Winston Zeddemore by a year, the fifty-four year old physicist was the oldest of the original Ghostbusters; his age showed in the greying of his thick dark hair, and a puffiness to his formerly sharp features that wasn't there in his youth. He adjusted his glasses as he studied the new arrival to GBI headquarters.

Beside him was the heart of the Ghostbusters, Dr. Ray Stantz. Only three years and two weeks away from his fiftieth birthday, his dark hair was greying also. He regarded the newcomer with wide eyes lacking the suspicion in Egon's intense gaze.

Neither was dressed in Ghostbusters uniform, though both sported GBI ID badges. Egon was wearing a suit and tie, Ray was in a t-shirt and bomber jacket.

"Dead ringers for Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd." Pollux shook her head. "At least that detail has been consistant."

"I'm Dr. Ray Stantz, Ghostbusters International, and this is..."

"If you please, Dr. Stantz, I already know who the two of your are. Or at least who you're supposed to be. For the moment, the name Pollux will have to suffice for me." the mysterious woman replied.

"Egon?' Ray asked his old friend. Only someone who knew Egon as well as Ray did would notice the man seemed abnormally absorbed even by his standards.

"Very well then." Egon replied after a moment. "The gate you appeared out of appeared to match the theoretical properties of a temporal distortion..."

"Indeed it was, Prof...Doctor Spengler." Pollux answered. "If you aren't familliar with Bell's Theorem of alternate dimensions I will be quite troubled..."

"Of course. It's the theorem that with each instant a new number of parallel dimensions are created, depending on the choices made by the inhabitants of the timeline."

"Can lead to some very disturbing alternative worlds." Ray added. "Like there are postulated dimensions where the Nazis won World War II..."

Unnoticed by the others, Janine appeared at the edge of the conversation. Right beside her was Louis Tully, her husband of five years, a man who embodied just about every cliche of "nerd".

"I don't understand why..." he started to drone quietly.

"Then leave." she bit back at him. "Right now I really don't care..."

"Infinite worlds branching from infinte timelines." Pollux continued. "Though where I come from it's not a theory--it's scientific fact. Where I came from, Doctor Spengler, you helped prove that."

Egon looked at her. "So what are you suggesting? That you're from the future? Or native to some parallel timeline?"

"At the moment, Professor, I'm not completely sure..."

"Is anyone else getting really bored right now?" Franky muttered under his breath.

"I was sent here from a time zone in the 21st Century." Pollux explained. "A massive temporal disturbance had been detected on this date, June 13, 1999. For several reasons, my partner and I were chosen to traverse the timeline to this date."

"When I arrived, I found myself in a world that doesn't match the history books--or my own personal recollections. Worse, I have no concrete inkling as to the fate of my partner, code name 'Romulus'."

Ray stroked his chin. "Interesting choices. Names of twins from Greek mythology, though they don't match..."

Pollux did manage a slight smirk. "Well, I didn't want to be Remus, he didn't want to be Helen or Castor, and niether of us wanted to have to keep spelling Clymenestra..."

Ray about choked. Egon found himself smirking in a curious and unbidden echo of the mysterious stranger.

At the edge of the conversation, a chill went down Janine's spine...at how strangely similar Egon and Pollux's smirks seemed.

Just then the PKE meter on Moira's belt began to flash. The strange device Pollux had used earlier began to beep. "More temporal flux?" Moira said as she studied her meter.

"Yes..." Pollux answered simply, and she reached into her collar to produce a glowing crystal attached to a necklace.

"Fascinating..." Egon said.

"It's a piece of quartz that was charged with temporal energy during a lab accident." Pollux explained. "It helps anchor me to this zone, and would theoretically have provided insulation against the Blinovich Limitation Effect. The glow means that either the scientist who accidentally created it or Lady Delphia are trying to contact me..." She pushed a few buttons on the device she carried.

A shimmering image appeared, fading in and out. A woman, wearing a purple and white outfit, her brown hair cut severely short...Ray was reminded ever so slightly of the human form Gozer the Gozarian had adopted, though without the aura of menace.

"Lady Delphia!" Pollux called out.

_"I can't...maintain this link for long, Lady Pollux..."_ the projection said_. "The situation is graver than we realized..."_

"Do you know what happened to Romulus?" Pollux asked.

_"He is safe, for the moment..."_ Delphia answered_. "Professor Ulforce is contacting him as I am you...the causal nexus has not only been compromised, it's unravelling...Ulforce and I are trying to hold the timeline together, but it's been bifurcated into two imperfect causalities...Romulus is in the other one..."_

"At least he's safe." Pollux replied. "What can be done?"

_"The nexus of the disturbance will exist in both realities...you must find it..."_

_"_Nodus." Pollux said. "When I first appeared here, I was thinking of Nodus..."

_"Nodus was the name of a man known to your parents, Lady Pollux...one around whom more than one mystery and anomaly swirled...perhaps he is the key. We know the significance of this day...the Gemini Twins must be found and reunited, the Five Who Are One must stand together...or all is lost..."_

Pollux looked around the room. "Where is Doctor Venkman?"

Ray exhaled and rolled his eyes. "He thinks he's too good to be associated with us now. He does 'important' stuff, and doesn't like to be reminded that he was once a Ghostbuster..."

_"I will use...what power I can send to bring him to you, Lady Pollux."_ Delphia said, strain beginning to show on her face_. "You must take the Five Who Are One, and find Nodus..."_

There was a blinding flash of white light.

Delphia was gone.

Sitting on the floor was a man with thinning hair, a tacky jacket, and a cel phone clutched in his hand. "Hello? Helloooo?"

"Bill Murray." Pollux shook her head. "The set is complete..."

The man on the floor looked around. He jumped up and lunged for Egon, his eyes suddenly filled with rage. "What the hell have you done to me now, Spengler?"

"I did not do anything." Egon replied acidly.

"Kidnapping me with you latest weird science gizmo doesn't count as 'doing something' you stuck up prick?!"

"He did not 'kidnap' you, Doctor Venkman..." Pollux interjected sternly. "If you must manifest irrational anger, direct it at me."

The man turned and looked at her, the rage melting from his face. A new expression, a cheerful grin, appeared. "Well why didn't you just say so? I'm Peter Venkman. Doctor Peter Venkman. The very rich and talented Peter Venkman..."

"The very married Peter Venkman." Winston reminded him.

"I don't know what you're implying, Yeronner..." Venkman replied. "He kidnap you too?"

"We don't have time for this, Doctor Venkman." Pollux said.

"That woman said the temporal causality nexus has been bifurcated?" Egon mused.

"Who was that Delphia woman?" Nat asked. "And who is 'Professor Ulforce'?"

"And what was that stuff about the Gemini Twins and Five Who Are One?" Ray asked.

"It answers one question: I haven't been deposited into some parallel dimension--the situation is far more grave." Pollux answered.

"Please, be sure to use small words for Franky's sake..." Lowell chimed in.

"This isn't a parallel timeline--the one I came from is being torn apart. Lady Delphia and Professor Ulforce are the most powerful chronomancers known; but all her magic and his Etheric science have been able to do is hold the breakdown at two timelines. For the moment."

"Spengler, if you dated I'd say I finally found you a woman..." Venkman rolled his eyes.

"I said the same thing..." Franky noted.

Niether of them noticed Janine, at the doorway, looking at them with murder in her eyes.

"Think of the progression of time like a DNA helix..." Pollux explained. "The helix is comprised of thousands of molecules arranged into two strands. What has basically happened here is that the two strands are unravelling...many of the events that led to the future I know have been distilled into two imperfect sets of events."

"The damaged timestream is trying to compensate for the loss--it's filling events with stopgaps and both events and people unheard of in the healthy timeline, while ones that were crucial to the flow of proper history have been displaced to one or the other, or even lost entirely."

"This is beginning to make my head all thumpy..." Lowell cracked.

"But you still haven't told us who these Gemini Twins are...or the Five Who Are One..." Ray noted.

"The Five Who Are One are the five beings who were crucial to the defeat of the Zodiac Lords in 1991." Pollux said. "And in the raising of the Gemini Twins."

Pollux looked at them, and then to where Janine was standing. "Egon Spengler, Janine Melnitz, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore. The five of you."

"We didn't defeat any Zodiac Lords in 1991..." Ray protested.

"Mrs. Tully? Going on busts?" Carla mused out loud, amazed at the thought.

"And the Gemini Twins?" Egon asked.

Pollux exhaled before answering. "The Gemini Twins were raised in the care of the Five Who Are One. In the history as it is written in my time, they were born today. June 13, 1999." She looked at Egon then Janine. "Their birth names are Johnathan Christopher and Eden Marie Spengler, the twin children of two of the Five: Professor Egon Spengler and his wife, the former Janine Melnitz."

Janine gasped. Egon stiffened noticeably. Louis, still at the edge of the crowd, looked like he wanted to vomit.

"What I believe is this...something happened to the Spengler Twins, and it concerns a man called Nodus. Whatever happened, it began the unravelling of the causal nexus of the true timeline, it's splitting into two imperfect sets of events. We need to find Nodus, restore the Spengler Twins, and set things right."

"Right?" Janine asked, moving closer.

"This is nuts..." Venkman grumbled. "I can take a lot of bullshit from leggy blondes, but this is really past the line..."

"You're saying this world is all wrong?" Ray asked. "So what are we 'supposed' to be..."

"You, Doctor Stantz, are married with a son, Eric. Mister Zeddemore is not the mayor...but he is also married, and has a daughter, Charlene. Both of you run Ghostbusters with Egon. Doctor Venkman is married to Dana Barrett, and raises not only her son Oscar, but a child of their own, Jessica. He is still involved with Ghostbusters, but spends a lot of his time in Hollywood as an agent."

"And we...Egon and I..." Janine said, eyes starting to tear up.

"What about me?" Louis said quietly.

Pollux didn't look at him. "You and Miss Melnitz did get married. Briefly. But both of you came to your senses and divorced."

Egon's eyebrow shot up.

"And what about us?" Lowell finally asked.

"Ghostbusters 2000 is a complete temporal oddity." Pollux asked.

"We don't exist?" Franky huffed.

"I didn't say that." Pollux replied. "But the Ghostbusters in the year 1999 are a completely different group. Dr. Roland Jackson, Eduardo Rivera, Kylie Griffin, and Garrett Miller."

"I've had enough of this..." Venkman shouted. "I'm calling a cab, getting out of here, and be glad if I don't sue..."

"The true versions of you and Professor Spengler went through their own period of bitterness." Pollux said. "But by now in the real timeline you've gotten past it. You were best man at his wedding. Were in the waiting room when his children were born."

Venkman's shoulders fell. "Spengs, you don't think any of this is true, do you?"

"There is no logical evidence." Egon replied. After a pause, he added. "But I also think she speaks the truth."

"What...what makes you say that?" Ray asked, as flabbergasted as any of them.

"It's not in my normal nature, but..." Egon replied, clearly uncomfortable. "I feel the truth."

" 'Search your feelings...' " Nat quipped. Carla giggled.

"Learning when to feel, I've been told, is one of the hard-won prizes your whole self has attained..." Pollux said enigmatically.

"So where to we go from here?" Lowell asked.

"First we need to find out everything we can about this man 'Nodus'..." Egon replied, trying to surpress a strange feeling of gratitude at Pollux's statement.

To Be Continued

* * *

"Ghostbusters 2000" based on and expanded from characters in the **Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent** treatment by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis

Other events in this story inspired by iBooks' novel "The Return" by Sholly Fisch

* * *

#3525-60806r (GB1-22)  
070 


	3. Chapter 3

**Slimer! and the Extreme Ghostbusters  
GEMINI RISING  
PART THREE**

By Fritz Baugh  
Ghostbusters Case File 1999-613

**June 13, 1999  
Central Park**

"...Must look forward to the new challenges in the coming new Millenium." His Honor, the Mayor of New York City, Edwin MacShayne, told the bored crowd.

He was the successor to the far more popular Lenny Clotch, but managed to get reelected by greasing the right palms and giving the occassional "tough on crime" speech. The fact the the Greatest City On Earth hadn't been sucked into the Tenth Level of Hell on his watch (despite a close call or two) certainly didn't hurt his image.

"And in conclusion..." MacShayne continued, flipping a page of his notes. A beefy white man of Irish descent, he looked the stereotypical politician. But he didn't get to finish the sentence...

There was a sudden howling of wind, and the skies suddenly began to twirl with an ominous indigo light.

"What shall we do, Mister Mayor?!"

MacShayne grimaced. He hated having to say what he was about to say, but knew there wasn't much alternative. Whatever was happening, it was outside the purview of the NYPD, the FDNY, and the National Guard. All organizations except one... "Call the Ghostbusters--now!!!" he commanded.

* * *

_It's not right..._

_Something has happened..._

_It's all wrong..._

_Pollux, where are you?_

* * *

The ECTO-1 arrived at the scene, lights flashing and sirens wailing. The famous logo--a cartoon ghost covered with a red slash--adorned the doors and hood of the vehicle.

The tailgate opened to allow a man in a wheelchair to roll out of the vehicle. He cracked his knuckles as he observed the scene. His upper body was muscular, and his head was topped with a mop of brown hair. "Now there's something you don't see every day..."

The driver of the car was an African-American with a wide jaw. Like the man in wheelchair, he was dressed in a tannish-colored jumpsuit. "You recieving telemetry at Ghostbusters Central, Professor?"

_"Affirmative, Roland"_ a deep voice replied.

"Can you hear Eddie belch from there, Professor?" the single female of the group, dressed in what looked to be orange football pads and made-up in classic "Goth" fashion, quipped.

_"Not yet."_ the deep voice returned. _"Perhaps if you fed him more chili..."_

"I hate you all, I just want you to know that..." the last human member of the group, a Latino with unruly hair and a goatee grumbled as he went to the back of the ECTO-1. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I want my proton pack." He was dressed in a vest, bellbottoms, and cowboy boots.

Roland Jackson, Garrett Miller, Kylie Griffin, and Eduardo Rivera were the newest members of Ghostbusters--they had been students of one of the original Ghostbusters, Egon Spengler, before a supernatural crisis placed them in the position to continue the legacy of the world's first Professional Paranormal Investigators and Eliminators.

One more member of the group was there, but he wasn't quite human--he was green, shaped vaguely like a potato, and floating.

The four twentysomethings walked over to Mayor MacShayne. Most of the rest of his entourage and audience had fled, but MacShayne himself stood his ground. He refused to be intimidated by things he still wasn't quite sure he believed in.

"Hello adoring public!!!" Garrett called cheerfully to what few people were left. "The Extreme Ghostbusters, your spook smashers for the new millenium, have arrived!!!"

"I keep telling you, that name is already dated..." Eduardo grumbled. "Nobody does the 'Extreme' thing anymore..."

"Mayor MacShayne!" Kylie called. "When did this start?"

"Pretty much ten seconds before my assistant called you clowns.' MacShayne replied, mopping his brow. "Now do something!!!"

"What do you think, Slimer?" Roland asked their green companion.

"Meesa seen enough dimensional portals to know one when meesa see it..." Slimer replied. "Yousa gonna finish that sandwich?" he asked one of the remaining mayoral aides.

"I'm getting an increasing PK sine curve here, Professor. Is that consistant with what Slimer said?" Roland asked.

_"Hmmm..."_ Egon replied at the other end. "Roland, are you getting a five-seven-two curve in the third harmonic?"

"Can we stop yakking and blast something?" Eduardo puffed impatiently.

"Yes, Professor..." Roland replied. "That's exactly the reading I'm getting here..."

_"Hm...."_

"Meesa don't like that 'Hm...' Egon..." Slimer said.

_"The harmonic is consistant with delta wave emission..."_

"Translate that into English for us, Doctor." Garrett asked. "Then put it into words with less than three syllables for Eddie to understand."

"Delta waves are a property of chronal flux..."

"Time dihalation." Roland added simply.

"Great..." Kylie quipped. "I can think of worse things than Micheal J. Fox and a Delorean popping out of that..."

The swirling maelstrom flared, and a blast of orange light shot to the ground, maybe a hundred yards away from them, splitting the ground open...

..And then the maelstrom was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.

Three neutrona wands were at the ready. Roland stepped forward first, PKE meter still blinking. "The PK surge has subsided...but I'm still picking up some residual readings...and...I think..."

"Think what, Jacko?" Eduardo asked.

"It looks like there might be someone there..."

_"Investigate..."_ Egon's voice prompted. "_But be careful..."_

Slimer went back to the ECTO-1, and grabbed his smaller proton pack. "Meesa think maybe this calls for an experience Ghostbusting hand, don't yousa?"

"The more the merrier." Eduardo rolled his eyes.

It took a moment for the smoke around the blast point to clear...the four Ghostbusters and Slimer moved forward, cautiously but with determination...

_"The PK is still fading..._ Egon commented. _"Do you see something?"_

"Whoa..." Kylie said, eyes going wide.

"There's some dude in the middle of that!" Garrett commented.

_"A, er, Dude?"_ Egon's voice came back.

"Male, Caucasian, Maybe six-six with red hair......" Kylie reported. "Wearing some kinda sleeveless red and purple outfit with white straps. Shows off his muscles..."

"You don't have to sound that impressed..." Eduardo grumbled.

"Keep it up, Ky. Eddie is getting quite jealous..." Garrett chuckled.

"Appears to be breathing...I'd estimate twenty-five years in age..." Kylie continued, trying to ignore them

"And big feet..." Garrett smirked. "But I'm sure Kylie noticed that already..."

"Keep your mind on your work Roller Boy..." Kylie hissed.

"Slimer?" Roland asked.

"Meesa not like this...its like Meesa seen this guy somewhere before, but not remember where..."

"Edie..." the man called deliriously, in a basso voice. "Pollux..."

"Nodus!!!" he exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright.

"Just hold it right there, Beefcake From Beyond..." Garrett said firmly, levelling his particle thrower.

The man looked at them with his intense green eyes, studying them with a strangely familiar expression. "Well, okay..." he muttered, and got to his feet with a speed and grace that belied his large frame. He pulled a small electronic device, looking vaguely like a pager, from one of the packs on his belt. He grunted at what the screen displayed. "June 13, 1999...just like the plan..."

He looked at them again, a slightly amused look on his face. "So far so good, but just how deep in the stinky are we? Ulforce said the entire causal nexus was in jeopardy."

" 'Causal nexus'? Great. We found the Professors long-lost brother..." Eduardo grumbled. "Can I shoot him now?"

"Slimer?" the man suddenly exclaimed, gaze fixing squarely on the Ghostbusters resident Class Five Full Roaming Vapor.

"Who are yousa?"

"Youre a lot cuter than the Slimer I knew." the man replied. "In fact, you look more like the one in the cartoons..."

"Hah?" Slimer asked.

"Integrity breakdown is definitely taking place." he mumbled to himself. "Replacement of personalities with semi-fictionalized counterparts..."

"Please let me shoot him now." Eduardo pleaded. "I don't care how smart he is--this is getting annoying..."

"Doctor Jackson, I need to talk to Professor Egon Spengler." he said firmly. "It is a matter of utmost importance..."

" Doctor Jackson?" Garrett repeated with bemusement. "Please tell me this aint that Tempus thing again..."

"Egon, youre about to have company..." Roland said after a few seconds.

_"I look forward to it, Roland."_ Egon replied. The man stroked his chin.

"You just behave yourself around the secretary." Garrett grinned. "She has a weak spot for tall guys who use big words.

"Believe me, Mister Miller, you got nothing to worry about there..."

"Well be the judge of that, Mister...er..."

"For now..." the man answered, putting the small device back into his belt. "Call me Romulus..." He walked over to the ECTO-1. "What the heck did you do to the car?"

"What do you mean?" Roland asked, defensive.

"The ECTO-1 is supposed to be a 1959 Cadillac Miller Meteor--this car looks like some kind of retarded knock-off..."

"I don't know where you got that idea--we added some stuff to the roof and the back, but it's the same car the Ghostbusters have been driving since the 1980's" Roland informed him.

Romulus looked even less pleased, but didn't say any more about the matter.

**Ghostbusters Central  
One Hour Later**

The ECTO-1 pulled up to the corner of 77th Street and 5th Avenue, the familiar former firehouse coming into view.

Romulus cocked an eyebrow. "Why the hell is it green?"

"What color should it be?" Kylie asked.

"More of a brick red..." Romulus replied.

"Its always been green as long as Meesa been here..." Slimer replied.

The ECTO-1 pulled into position in the garage. A cheerful looking woman with red hair looked up at them as they got out of the car.

Kylie was certain she heard Romulus inhale sharply.

"It's about time you got back, Guys!!! I've already got five calls from the TV stations and the Mayor's staff trying to find out what was going on!!! And on top of that..." the older woman informed them, in tones that were still perky and chipper despite her age.

Romulus suddenly looked ready to re-experience his most recent meal in reverse. "What the hell happened to her voice?"

"Dont let the media boys or the Mayors goons bother you, Janine." Garrett cracked. "Since we werent waving any money around or volunteering to shoot squeegee guys, they have to hassle us."

"I'm not bothered!!! But..." her voice trailed off as she saw the tall, red-haired man for the first time.

They stared at each other silently for thirty seconds.

"This is the guy we found in the park, Janine." Kylie explained, not liking the way they were looking at each other.

Romulus broke the silence, a strangely...contrite tone in his voice. "I apologize for being surprised, M..." He stopped himself. "Mrs. Spengler."

There was a round of laughter among the younger Ghostbusters.

"Mrs. Spengler?" Janine looked shocked, then laughed. "Yeah, I wish...if he'd just come to his senses!!!"

Romuluss face pinched. It gave Janine a chill...it reminded her very much of the look Egon could get when one of his molds went bad.

"The Professor is a tough nut to crack--that guy has a broom lodged so far up his rear end he could sweep the floor with his nosehair." Eduardo blathered.

"Drop dead, Rivera!" Kylie snorted.

"I apologize for my assumption then, Miss Melnitz." Romulus said.

Janine looked--and truth, felt--slightly embarrassed.

"What are you, a stalker or something?" Garrett asked. "And which one are you after?"

"Garrett, that is a really mean thing to say!!!" Janine said.

"Aw, cmon, he comes in here spouting all this stuff about casual necks..."

"Causal nexus" Romulus interjected.

"...And on top of that, has some idea that you and the Professor have a sorta almost thing going on?" Garrett continued. "Am I really the only one suspicious of that?"

"This is our case, remember?" Slimer prodded Garrett. "Meesa think hes weird, but Meesa like him!"

Romulus looked at Garrett, intense eyes grave. "Let's just say that I have the best possible justification for knowing about Egon and Janine's relationship. I need to see Egon Spengler. Now."

"Easily arranged." A deep voice cut into the chatter.

Romulus inhaled deeply before turning to face the speaker, like he needed to prepare hirself.

Professor Egon Spengler was the brain behind the founding of Ghostbusters Inc. The fourty-one year old physicist was the only member of the original Ghostbusters to still be active with the company. His blond hair had grown long over the years between the career of the original Ghostbusters and the founding of the Extreme Ghostbusters, and was gathered into a ponytail. He adjusted his thick-rimmed eyeglasses as he studied the new arrival to Ghostbusters Central.

"Damn..." Romulus shook his head. "He looks at least twenty years older than he should..."

Egon wasnt wearing a Ghostbuster uniform--instead he sported a sleeveless sweater over a button-down shirt and tie.

"I'm Professor Egon Spengler, Chief Executive Officer of Ghostbusters Inc."

"I know who your are, Professor. Or at least who you're supposed to be. For the moment, call me Romulus." the mysterious man replied.

"Egon?" Janine asked, sidling up behind the scientist. She knew him well enough to know he was unusually focussed, even for him

"Very well then." Egon replied after a moment. "The gate you appeared out of appeared to match the theoretical properties of a temporal distortion..."

"Indeed it was, Professor." Romulus answered. "I know you know all about Bells Theorem of Parallel Dimensions...

"Of course. It's the theorem that with each instant a new number of parallel dimensions are created, depending on the choices made by the inhabitants of the timeline. Not exactly a new revelation--I've built several devices over the years designed to penetrate the dimensional barrier." Egon looked at him. "So what are you suggesting, then? That you're not from the future, but native to some parallel timeline?"

"At the moment, Prof, I'm not completely sure..."

"Is anyone else getting really bored right now?" Eduardo muttered under his breath.

"I was sent here from a time zone in the 21st Century." Romulus explained. "A massive temporal disturbance had been detected on this date, June 13, 1999. For several reasons, my partner and I were chosen to traverse the timeline to this date."

"When I arrived, I found myself in a world that doesn't match the history books--or my own personal recollections. Worse, I have no concrete inkling as to the fate of my partner, code name Pollux

Roland scratched his head. "Pollux and Romulus? Those are twins from Greek mythology, but they dont match each other."

Romulus did manage a slight smirk. "Well, I didn't want to be Helen or Castor, she didnt want to be Remus, and niether of us wanted to have to keep spelling Clymenestra..."

Roland about choked. Egon found himself smirking in a curious and unbidden echo of the mysterious stranger.

A chill went down Janine's spine...at how strangely similar Egon and Romuluss smirks seemed.

Just then the PKE meter on Rolands belt began to flash. The strange device Romulus had used earlier began to beep.

"More temporal flux?" Kylie asked as Roland studied his meter.

"Yep..." Romulus answered simply, pulling something out of his collar--a glowing crystal attached to a necklace.

"Fascinating..." Egon said.

"It's a piece of quartz that was charged with temporal energy during a lab accident." Romulus explained. "It helps anchor me to this zone, and would theoretically have provided insulation against the Blinovich Limitation Effect. The glow means that either the scientist who accidentally created it or Lady Delphia are trying to contact me..." He pushed a few buttons on the device he carried.

A shimmering image appeared, fading in and out. A man, wearing an eccentric black and blue outfit, with grey hair and eyes covered by a strange visor. He was sitting in a high-tech chair of some sort.

"Professor Ulforce! Romulus called out.

"I can't...maintain this link for long, Lord Romulus..." the projection said. "The situation is graver than we realized..."

"Pollux? Any idea?" Romulus asked.

"She is safe, for the moment..." Ulforce answered. "Lady Delphia is contacting her just as I am you...the causal nexus is more than compromised, the damn thing is unravelling...Delphia and I've managed to hold it down to two imperfect causalities, but its taking all the power we have to keep it from fracturing further. Pollux is in the other split reality..."

"As long as shes all right..." Romulus replied. "So what do we do now, Prof?"

"The central nexus of the disturbance will exist in both realities...you must find it..."

"Nodus." Romulus said. "That was the word I was thinking of when I appeared here..."

"With the timestream breaking down, maybe the Fourth Law is bending...it was someone your parents knew, a man who was very much an anomaly himself. Find the Gemini Twins, Romulus...the Five Who Are One must be together, or all is lost..."

Romulus looked around the room. "Theres a bit of a problem with that--I only see two." He looked at Egon. "Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore--where are they?"

"Peter is in Hollywood--hes an important agent now." Egon replied. "Ray is selling used cars in Colorado, and Winston is flying a commuter plane in Montana."

"And it's pronounced 'Zeddmore', not 'Zeddemore'!!!" Janine added.

"I will use...what power I can send to bring them to you, Romulus." Ulforce said, strain beginning to show on his face. "You must take the Five Who Are One, and find Nodus..."

There was a blinding flash of white light.

Professor Ulforce was gone.

Three men were sitting on the floor in his place.

One had a brown mullet and a cel phone clutched in his hand. "Hello? Helloooo?"

"It has a cruise control, I swear..." the pudgier man with a thin frizz of auburn hair was saying. "Huh?"

The African American man was dressed in a pilot suit, and his formerly dark hair was distinctly grey. "Aw, man...dont I get a little down time before the next flight?"

"Good grief..." Romulus shook his head. "And they look twenty years too old too..."

"Peter!!!" Slimer squealed happily, and threw himself at the man with the cel phone.

"Slimer Little Buddy!!!" Peter Venkman replied, hugging his green friend tight. "So this is another one of Egons wacky experiment, huh?"

Romulus incredulously repeated the words "Slimer Little Buddy. Bunsens Burner, its worse than I thought..."

"Egon?!" Ray hopped up, excited. "Wow!!! You did it!!! You finally invented a working teleportation system!!! This is soo cool!!! We can really wow them at the next Star Patrol convention!!!"

"I..." Egon started to say.

"Well, next time, a little warning before you beam us across the country." Winston rolled his eyes. "What if I'd been in the middle of a flight?"

Peter was playfully prodding Egon. "He's just mad because if your gizmo works, he could be out of a job..."

"He didn't have anything to do with it." Romulus interjected sternly. "It was at my instigation."

The three of them turned to face him.

"This is our latest case, guys!!!" Janine beamed. "His name is Romulus!!!"

"You're a tall one." Peter remarked, shaking his hand. "I like the haircut--you know Egon had a squiggly tail like yours in the old days?"

"So I've been told." Romulus replied. "That and keep Doctor Venkman away from my sister..."

"Aw, the gossip rags would have you believe I've dated half the women in Hollywood." Peter pshawed. "It's only been a third, tops..."

"Dana must be thrilled." Romulus replied, eyes narrowing.

"Dana? Dana who?" Peter asked.

"Dana Barrett." Romulus answered.

"I don't think I remember that name." Peter replied. "But when you're Doctor Vee, you don't always get their names..."

"You're still looking good, Janine." Winston was saying, hugging her. "Still keeping this guy in line?" indicating Egon.

"As best as I can!!!" she replied brightly.

"Venkman likes Slimer...Venkman sounds like a retarded Bill Murray impersonator...Miss Melnitz sounds like a cheerleader...Slimer talks semi-coherently...yeah, the world is in it deep..." Romulus muttered to himself.

"So how did you get us here anyway?" Ray asked, clearly excited. "Did you really use a real life teleportation system?"

"It''s not that simple, Ray." Egon replied. "Not more than two hours ago, he appeared out of a temporal anomaly." He turned to Romulus. "That Professor Ulforce man said the temporal causality nexus has been fractured into two imperfect timelines?" Egon mused.

"And who was that guy? Kylie asked. "And who is Lady Delphia?"

"And what was that stuff about the Gemini Twins and Five Who Are One?" Roland asked.

"It answers one question: I haven't been deposited into some parallel dimension--the situation is far more grave." Romulus replied.

"Please, be sure to use small words for Eddie's sake..." Garrett chimed in.

"This isn't a parallel timeline--this is the right one, the one I came from, but it's being torn apart. Lady Delphia and Professor Ulforce are the most powerful chronomancers known; but all her magic and his Etheric science have been able to do is hold the breakdown at two timelines. For the moment."

"Egon, I think we found your long-lost brother" Peter rolled his eyes.

"I said the same thing..." Eduardo noted.

"Think of the progression of time like...a really long novel." Romulus said. "Now take the book apart into chapters, split them into two piles, give them to two seperate groups of people who hadnt read the book before, and have them read them."

"Well say for sake of argument that they still read the chapters they have in order, but theres lots missing. Events that led to the future I know have been ripped into two imperfect continuities."

"The damaged timestream is trying to compensate for the loss--the audience is writing in its own fill-ins for the missing chapters, but even at that the stopgaps are filled with events and people that didn't exist at all in the healthy timeline, while ones that were crucial to the flow of proper history have been displaced to one or the other, or maybe even lost entirely."

"This is beginning to make my head all thumpy..." Garrett cracked.

"But you still haven't told us who these Gemini Twins are...or the Five Who Are One..." Roland noted.

"The Five Who Are One are the five people who defeated the Zodiac Lords in 1991." Romulus said. "And raised the Gemini Twins."

Romulus looked at them. "Egon Spengler, Janine Melnitz, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore. The five of you."

"It's pronounced 'Zeddmore' " Winston corrected. "There's only two 'e's in it..."

"We didn't defeat any Zodiac Lords in 1991..." Ray protested. "Though that was about the time we defeated all the ghosts in the world and shut down the company..."

"Janine does cut quite a sight in that pink jumpsuit." Peter joked. Slimer laughed and they high-fived. Janine pouted.

"And the Gemini Twins?" Egon asked.

Romulus paused. "The Gemini Twins were raised in the care of the Five Who Are One. And heres the kicker: according to the history I know, they were born today: June 13, 1999." He looked at Egon then Janine. "Their birth names are Eden Marie and Johnathan Christopher Spengler, the twin children of two of the Five: Professor Egon Spengler and his wife, the former Janine Melnitz."

Janine gasped. Egon stiffened noticeably.

"You hound you!!!" Peter slapped Egons back.

"Thing is...something happened to the Spengler Twins, and it concerns a man called Nodus. Whatever happened, it began the unravelling of the causal nexus of the true timeline, it's splitting into two imperfect sets of events. We need to find Nodus, restore the Spengler Twins, and set things right."

"Right?" Janine asked, moving closer.

"This is nuts..." Eduardo grumbled. "I think someone ate too many Frosty Cakes and its giving him sugar shock..."

"You're saying this world is all wrong?" Ray asked. "So what are we 'supposed' to be..."

"You, Doctor Stantz, are married with a son, Eric. Mister Zedd-**e**-more is also married, and has a daughter, Charlene. Both of you run Ghostbusters with Egon. Doctor Venkman is married to Dana Barrett, and raises not only her son Oscar, but a child of their own, Jessica. He is still involved with Ghostbusters, but spends a lot of his time in Hollywood as an agent."

"And Oh my Gosh...Egon and I..." Janine said, eyes starting to tear up.

Egon's eyebrow shot up.

"And what about us?" Garrett finally asked. "Let me guess, were all wrong, and to fix the timeline we have to cease to exist?"

"Not at all." Romulus replied. "But there are differences. By 1999, for example, Kylie and Eduardo were already an item..."

Kylie and Eduardo looked at each other.

Peter looked at his old friend. "Spengs, you don't think any of this is true, do you?"

"There is no logical evidence." Egon replied. After a pause, he added. "But I also think he speaks the truth."

"What...what makes you say that?" Ray asked, as flabbergasted as any of them.

"It's not in my normal nature, but..." Egon replied, clearly uncomfortable. "I feel the truth."

" 'Search yousa feelings...' " Slimer quipped. Janine giggled.

Romulus grinned. "Now you're starting to sound like the Egon Spengler I know."

"So where to we go from here?" Roland asked.

"First we need to find out everything we can about this man 'Nodus'..." Egon replied, trying to surpress a strange feeling of gratitude at Romuluss statement.

To Be Continued

* * *

#3526-61006y  
071


	4. Chapter 4

**Ghostbusters 2000  
GEMINI RISING  
PART FOUR**

By Fritz Baugh  
GBI Case File 0-1999-16/613

* * *

**The Past:**

In 1984, Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Ray Stantz, and Dr. Egon Spengler formed Ghostbusters Inc. Winston Zeddemore has since left the company to become Mayor of New York, and Venkman has angrily distanced himself from his past accomplishments; Ray and Egon continue to run Ghostbusters International with the help of Louis and Janine Tully.

To take up the slack, Ray and Egon hired the team known as "Ghostbusters 2000": Jack Lowell, Franky Tate, Moira Drew, Carla Delgado, and junior trainee Nat Carson.

**Today:**

Ghostbusters 2000 answered a call from Mayor Winston Zeddemore to investigate a temporal disturbance.

An enigmatic woman called "Pollux" appears, and tells them she must talk with "Professor" Spengler. They take her back to GBI Headquarters, where she is interrogated by Egon, Ray, and Nat.

Another mysterious being, "Lady Delphia" briefly appears, reveals that the true timeline has become corrupted and fractured into two imperfect parallel worlds. Romulus, Pollux's partner, has landed on the other.

Pollux tells them of the "true" history of the Ghostbusters: most shockingly, of the marriage of Egon and Janine, and that it was the kidnapping of their newborn twins, Johnathan Christopher and Eden Marie, that started the disruption of the true timeline. And that to restore the proper flow of history, and heal the timeline, they must locate "Nodus".

* * *

**Ghostbusters International Headquarters  
Seventh Avenue and 30th Street  
New York, NY  
June 13, 1999**

* * *

"The history of Josiah Nodus in the context of the uncorrupted timeline is still enigmatic." Pollux reported as Janine typed away at a computer terminal. "His academic and biographical details were highly dubious before he became a wonder of the stock scene in late 1990, building the fortune he used to purchase Grossjuck Industries, an industrial electronics firm, and turn it into Nodus International."

Janine looked at her. "Hm...now that you mention it..." she began typing away.

"Please continue." Egon asked.

"But it became quite clear that he wasn't an ordinary industrialist. By some accounts, he had become quite familiar with Ghostbuster technology, enough to discover a way of circumventing Professor Spengler's PKE meter's detection abilities."

"Why do you keep calling him 'Professor'?" Moira asked.

"In the uncorrupt timeline he spends six years teaching paranormology at New York City Community College." Pollux answered. "The title stuck."

"Fascinating." Egon mused. "What else is there that Nodus has done?"

"He hired the Ghostbusters to go to Romania, ostensibly to guard one of his employees, knowing full well that the man she'd been sent to see was an elder vampire. Then he appeared during the Zodiac Imperative crisis of 1991...he helped the Ghostbusters arrive in England, then appeared at the end of the event, and tried to attack one of the Zodiac avatars."

"I hate to digress, but just what are those? You've mentioned all of that before..." Lowell asked.

"They were twelve powerful beings that attempted to 'judge' humanity. They each took their names from one of the signs of the Zodiac--it was by scanning the Ghostbusters, the Five Who Are One, that they judged humanity fit to survive."

Ray shook his head. "This sounds like something from an issue of the _Justice Society of America_. Anything else?"

"That is all I remember from the GBI case files I've read." Pollux replied.

Janine looked over at the rest of them. "I may have something..."

Egon, Pollux, and Nat crowded around the computer screen. "I did find something about a Nodus..." Janine told them. "It's even an electronics firm, based on a highrise off 40th street. But there's no 'Josiah Nodus' mentioned--the company press releases all talk about their whiz-kid CEO, _Albert_ Nodus..." Janine clicked a link. "They even got a picture of the guy..."

Pollux inhaled sharply when the picture appeared.

The picture was of a tall, well-built man. He had handsome features and a head of thick red hair. But the look in his green eyes was cold, and ominous.

"Pollux?" Janine asked, feeling a strange sort of unease looking at the picture, and from the obvious reaction of their visitor.

"Albert Nodus is the very image of the full grown Johnathan Christopher Spengler." Pollux told them.

"You're certain of that?" Egon asked.

She gave him a look that, curiously, reminded him of the look Janine always gave Venkman whenever he said something obtuse. "There are very few people in the world more qualified to identify Johnathan Spengler than I am."

* * *

Winston stood patiently as Venkman finished his call to Dana. "Yeah, yeah, I know...I should've just swallowed my ego and made up years ago, but c'mon...you know what a big ego I have...Love you too. Tell Oscar I'll be back as soon as this mess is over."

After Venkman hung up the phone Winston finally spoke up. "I take it you're in for the duration, huh?"

Venkman looked down at himself, his tan flight suit with his last name sewn into the left chest patch. "I never thought I'd be wearing this thing again..."

"All these years and you still haven't figured out how to tuck your pants in..." Winston quipped.

"It's just laziness." Venkman replied. "How the mayoral staff take you ditching them?"

"Since it's only for an afternoon, a lot better than they did when you resigned on Inauguration Day."

Venkman chuckled. "They were pretty mad...but hey, look how it turned out! I think everyone came out for the better in the deal!"

"But you heard what that lady said, Pete. I wasn't supposed to be mayor..."

"Too bad for the 'real' world...I bet it's some pandering cockroach like Lapinski or that character that prosecuted us..."

Winston embraced him. "Good to have you back, man, even if it's only for a day..."

"Strange thing is...it's good to be back. I swear I can't even remember what I was mad about in the first place..."

Winston looked quizzical. "Now that you mention it...niether do I."

* * *

"Egon..."

He'd been dreading this.

He glanced at her, then went back to the data they'd printed out on Albert Nodus. Egon's eyes narrowed--Albert Nodus, he realized with a start, had the exact same hair color Janine did...

"Egon, you've spent years avoiding me..." Janine said more forcefully, moving in closer.

"I am not avoiding you." he replied bluntly.

"Oh yes you are..." she replied.

He finally looked at her, and adjusted his eyeglasses. "Is this because of what Pollux said about our...counterparts? And the relationship they allegedly had?"

He noticed she'd already donned a flight suit--one of his. It was too big on her, but she was wearing it anyway. It fit her about as badly as another one of his had fit Louis ten years before. "Allegedly? You said yourself you believe her..."

He didn't have an easy answer. "That's immaterial..." he finally thought of replying. "You are married to Louis Tully. Supposing I had any...feelings...that fact in itself would be grounds for avoidance."

"You avoided me for years even before he came along..." she grabbed his glasses and pulled them off. "What have you been afraid of, Egon?"

He shrunk back, realizing that her proximity was causing an uncomfortable set of reactions. His temperature was rising, his heartbeat was accellerating. Blood was starting to flow to places he wasn't used to it flowing to..."I..."

"I waited for any sign out of you...I got one or two. Like that hug when you beat Gozer. But then the court shut you down and you vanished. I found out where you were and you didn't take my calls and always had your students cover for you." She leaned in closer. "Just what were you afraid of?!"

She kissed him. He felt himself beginning to weaken. To surrender to it. To welcome those strange sensations...

He pushed her away. "This isn't right..."

"No, Egon--according to Pollux, us being apart is what's not right." She stood up and turned away. "That's what your afraid of, isn't it? That you spent all those years denying you're a human being...that you _do_ have feelings for me."

He put his glasses on and sighed deeply. "We shall find out the truth soon enough."

* * *

"We'll take the car to Nodus Plaza..." Ray told Lowell.

"We don't get to go?" Franky asked crossly.

"Lady Delphia's words were clear: 'Take the Five Who Are One, and find Nodus...' " Pollux shook her head. "To take anyone else might be inviting further temporal disaster."

"Mrs. Tully gets to go and we have to stay here..." Franky grumbled. "This sucks..."

"We need you kids to hold down the fort." Venkman informed them. "If this doesn't work...or it's a trap or whatever...we need to know somebody's gonna be back here to rescue us."

"Or carry on after we're gone." Winston said brightly.

"You say the nicest things, Yerhoner..." Venkman replied.

A familiar clunk and electronic whine interrupted their banter.

Louis Tully was standing there with a proton pack. "I don't think so..."

"Louis..." Ray said soothingly.

"Move and I'll shoot!!! I mean it!!!" Louis shouted.

"Louis. Dude. What is the problem?" Venkman asked.

"What's the problem?!" Louis yelled back. "This wierd woman comes out of nowhere, says everything's wrong, you all believe it for no reason, and I'm the one with the problem?!"

"Louis..." Janine started to say.

"Shut up!!!" Louis screamed in reply. "Don't think I haven't noticed you getting all hot and bothered by her little fairy tale about you and Doctor Spengler!!!"

He pointed the neutrona wand at Pollux. "I'm not gonna let you take my life away from me...Janine's the one thing I ever did right, the only woman who ever liked me, and I'm not going to let you take her away from me with your stupid little story!!!"

"And waving a gun around and threatening her? She'll find that endearing?" Pollux retorted, staring at the little man. He noticed there was no fear in her eyes--indeed, there seemed to be a growing sense of contempt.

"I'm the only one not under your spell" he finally said, voice shaking a little bit. "I'll stop you!!!"

"Mister Tully..." Pollux said. "I think you're afraid because you know, deep down, that like the rest of them, you know what's right and what isn't."

"I can't lose her!!!"

"That's inevitable Mister Tully." Pollux replied. "I know I said that in the true timeline, you lost her...but what I didn't say is that, while it takes time, you find someone else. Someone all your own---someone who loves you and only you. Not Peter Venkman or Andre Wallance. Not Egon Spengler. You."

He stared at her, trying to divine the truth of her words. "Really?"

He wavered for a few more seconds, then lowered the thrower. "I'm sorry I..."

"We'll talk about it later." Ray said, patting him on the shoulder as Carla gently removed the thrower from his grip.

"Janine, I..."

"I know Louis." she nodded. "But one way or another, I gotta go. I gotta find out the truth--we all do."

"Yes..." Egon agreed, with a swiftness and conviction that surprised them all. Venkman grinned like the Cheshire cat and elbowed Winston.

"See? I told you he might be human after all..."

* * *

**Nodus Plaza, Off 40th Street**

* * *

"One more question..." Egon asked. "You and that woman both referred to...the Spengler children as the 'Gemini Twins'. It seems conspicuous in light of the other astrologically themed elements of the 'Five Who Are One' concept..."

Pollux adjusted her eyeglasses. "In all honesty, I don't know. I first heard that reference when Delphia contacted Romulus and I. I picked the codename 'Pollux'..." She seemed to need a second to measure her words. "As a sort of acknowledgement of our mission."

Venkman blinked.

"Castor and Pollux were twins in Greek myth. " Ray explained from the driver seat. "They're also the names of the two brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini."

"We're here..." Winston said, pointing at the highrise in front of them.

All five Ghostbusters had an uncomfortable sense of deja vu as the ECTO-1A parked in front of the complex, and the six passengers left the car.

"Before Nodus bought it, it was owned by Grossjuck Industries." Pollux explained. "But the Ghostbusters had visited even before that--in 1986, Grossjuck's CEO, a corporate robber baron named Paul Smart, stole Ghostbuster technology and attempted to drive them out of business."

"It still sounds weird talking about Ghostbusting in 1986." Winston shook his head. "We weren't even in business then..."

"The uncorrupted timeline does include some events that will be familiar." Pollux told him. "The court cases from Gozer finally came to fruition that year--after that, Ghostbusters was out of business for two years.

"Was I doing parties for ungrateful yuppie larva in that time?" Ray asked, rolling his eyes as he put on his ecto goggles.

"Yes, actually." Pollux answered.

"Shit..." Venkman cussed. "I forgot how heavy these things are..." He struggled into his proton pack.

Janine didn't look too comfortable either. She'd worn one a time or two in an effort by Ray to get her knowledgeble with the equipment ("Just in case" he said) but couldn't imagine wearing it every day.

"I met this Nodus guy at a few events." Winston mentioned. "Didn't seem all that interested in politics, thank goodness. Bit of a cold fish, but a couple of the women on my staff said they thought he was cute." He looked at Egon. "Kinda like the way women talk about you."

Pollux looked up at the building, then at her device. "The readings from the GBX confirm it...there's definitely an anomaly emitting delta and epsilon particles on the top floor of that building."

"Epsilon and delta? I don't remember that fraternity..." Venkman cracked.

"Delta particles--time dihalation. Epsilon--dimensional dihilation." Egon explained simply.

"The whole package. Great." Janine deadpanned.

* * *

The secretary understandably blinked when the six of them got off the elevator. "Miss Van Horn?" she said, then looked back at the office door. "Wait...you're not Miss Van Horn..." She seemed to be looking at Pollux.

Venkman sidled up to the desk. "Normally, I'm the one who gets confused for someone else. Usually movie stars. What's your name, cupcake?"

Egon and Janine both rolled their eyes in unison at Venkman's old schtick.

"Er..."

"Save it, Mister Barrett." Winston said calmly. "Please tell your boss that the Mayor of New York is here to see him."

"Yeah, right, I..." the secretary started to backtalk, then her eyes opened wide. "You _are_ the Mayor! I just didn't recognize you in..." she dialed the phone. "Mister Nodus? The Mayor is here to see you..."

"Tell him it's urgent." Pollux said forcefully.

"One of them said it was urgent." the secretary said. "Well, he's here with some Ghostbusters." The secretary sat there for a few seconds. "Yes sir..."

She gulped as she put down the phone. "He says he already knew you were here, and to send you right in."

The large door opened, and a blonde woman stepped out. She was in a business suit, and had what looked to be the exact same haircut as Pollux. "Lydia Van Horn, Mister Nodus's personal assistant." she introduced herself. "He said he needed to see the six of you privately..."

"Lovely hair..." Venkman commented, grinning.

Lydia did seem a bit flustered by the comment. "Mister Nodus asked me to do it this way...says he likes the style." She looked at Pollux with something that might be jealousy.

"You have no idea how incredibly disturbing that fact may be..." Pollux said simply.

They entered the office, and Lydia closed the door behind them.

"Nice..." Ray whistled.

"Mine's nicer." Venkman retorted.

"Greetings." a deep voice cut through the room. "I admit, the appearance of the Ghostbusters in my humble establishment was unexpected." the chair at the desk swung around, and its occupant stood up. "Albert Nodus, CEO of Nodus International. And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

Janine gasped...the picture she'd seen somehow didn't do him justice. He was taller than even Egon, with a larger build obvious under his expensive Italian suit. His hair was the same red as her own, and his green eyes were cold, but intense.

"I have brought them here, Mister Nodus." Polux answered, stepping forward. Her face had hardened.

"Yes...I bet you did..." Nodus replied. "I would assume that if the services of the Mayor of New York and the founders of Ghostbusters International are required, it must be a matter of some importance."

Egon was feeling more deja vu than ever. Like Janine, he was rivetted to this man...he realized it was very similar to the strange, unwelcome emotional reaction he had when he'd first met Pollux a few hours before.

"Utmost." Pollux answered. "Let us start with this: what can you tell us about the whereabouts of Josiah Nodus?"

Nodus raised an eyebrow, in a curiously...Spenglerian fashion. "My father is sadly no longer in this world."

"Josiah Nodus...is you father?" Pollux replied. It didn't escape the notice of the Ghostbusters that this seemed to take her aback.

"He made me everything I am today." Nodus answered.

Janine stepped beside Pollux. "What about Johnathan Christopher and Eden Marie Spengler? Those names ring a bell?"

Nodus smirked. "Yes...I suspected that incident in the park was something like this. I had been warned that those dedicated to the old order would make a last, desperate attempt to stop what is happening."

"You _are_ behind this..." Pollux stated.

"In a manner of speaking..." Nodus replied. "It all depends on your point of view--in our eyes, what we are doing is what needs to be done to put an imperfect, illogical universe to rest, and build a better one in its place."

Ray Stantz unhooked his neutrona wand. "I'm not completely sure what you mean by that, but I'm pretty sure I don't like the sound of it..."

" 'Our' eyes?" Winston asked.

"My father, my sister, and myself..." Nodus answered. "And noone, not the fabled Five Who Are One, not a temporal oddity from a timeline that will soon be no more, will stop us!!!"

"My ass..." Venkman snarled; all five Ghostbusters now had their neutrona wands at ready.

"It will soon be too late for you to stop it." Albert Nodus smirked. "Even if you were capable..." He sneered, and there was a blast of orange light.

The next thing Ray knew, he was thrown against to office wall, Venkman and Winston next to him. "You okay?" he asked Winston.

"No." Winston grumbled.

"I'm fine..." Venkman muttered, clearly NOT fine...

Ray looked up...he saw Egon and Janine, knocked down but still where they started.

More surprisingly, Pollux was still standing.

"Eh?" Nodus asked, clearly not expecting this result.

"The Chronomancers' wisdom in giving me this mission is more apparent that ever." Pollux said, a defiant tone growing in her voice. "Whatever power Josiah Nodus has awakened in you is useless against me..."

"You _are_ her..." Nodus snarled. "Immune to my power you might be, but I can still destroy you with my bare hands!!!" It was quite obvious he was now genuinely angry. He pulled back the left sleeve of his suit to reveal a high-tech armband. "Protocol Sixty Six!!! Authorization Albert Einstein Nodus!!!"

Egon was trying to struggle to get up...trying to figure out why he and Janine were only knocked down while his friends were blasted against the wall--and Pollux was unaffected--when three shimmering doorways opened.

Three robots stepped out of the doorways, which disappeared behind them. _"RoboBuster Protocol Sixty Six: Extermination of All Intruders Threatening A Member of the Nodus Family. Protocol Activated"_

"Look out!!!" Ray shouted as one of the robots fired a proton beam out of its forearm housing. Venkman barely evaded the blast.

"My RoboBusters will take care of the Five Who Are One..." Nodus shouted. "You, Lady Gemini, are MINE!!!" With that he jumped Pollux, knocking her to the ground. His hands reached for her neck, and started to squeeze.

"Janine! Look out!!!" Egon shouted, shooting the robot that had tried to blast Janine.

The RoboBuster seemed to halt suddenly. _"Error...Protocol Error...Psychokinetic Trace matching on-file entry of..."_

"Override, you stupid bucket of bolts!!!" Nodus shouted.

Pollux used the distraction to push him off of her, then a kick to the stomach, staggering him.

Winston fired a beam at one of the RoboBusters. It splashed off of it.

"It's proton shielded!!!" Ray shouted.

"Then what the f*** do we do?!" Venkman shouted back, now hiding behind Nodus's desk. All four of his comrades ran back to join him.

"Are you all right?" Egon asked Janine.

"Careful, 'Professor'..." she replied, giving him a mischievous look. "That almost sounds like you really do care..."

"I...I would be lying if I said I didn't" Egon admitted, looking a little sheepish.

"Now if only you'd admitted that ten years ago..." Ray rolled his eyes.

"Hey, Zee...could you like call the police and arrest these guys?" Venkman asked.

"I don't think we have any holding cells strong enough to hold nuclear robots..." Winston replied.

"C'mon, they can hold Bronx gang-bangers, nuclear robots should be a piece of cake."

The three robots stood at the other side of Nodus's desk, in a line. _"Prepare to fire."_

Nodus grabbed Pollux angrily and threw her into the wall. "You cannot stop me...you cannot stop us...this is what I've been preparing for my whole life!!!"

"A life that was stolen, Nodus..." Pollux replied. "_Two_ lives that were stolen..." She kicked him in the family jewels, and then pummelled him.

_Whoa..._ Janine smirked, noticing. _If I didn't know better I'd swear there's a bit of a Brooklyn scrapper in that one..._

"We might try aiming for a joint..." Egon said.

"I left all mine in LA." Venkman retorted.

Ray bonked him on the head. "He means a knee or an elbow."

"Knee." Winston said. "It should knock them down."

"Ready on three..." Venkman said.

"I don't care if you look like my sister..." Nodus snarled. "I WILL kill you!!!" He howled with a disquieting feral rage, and grabbed Pollux once more, throttling the life out of her.

"I really hope this works..." Ray said. "One..."

"Been nice knowing you guys if it doesn't." Venkman sighed. "Two..."

Janine grabbed Egon and kissed him hard.

He looked dumbfounded for a second.

Winston shook his head with a smirk. "Three..."

The five Ghostbusters jumped from behind the desk, and fired.

Pollux felt her life starting to slip away..._It cannot end this way...the entire universe is at stake!_

One of the robots fell, its leg sheared off.

Pollux realized she felt something against her hand...the chrono-quartz necklace had come out of her collar during the fight. It was starting to pulsate.

She got a hold on it, and smacked it against Albert Nodus's forehead.

Nodus screamed in agony, and the world around them faded in a blast of white light...

* * *

**GBI Headquarters**

* * *

"No, the normal Client Administrator is _not_ here! Why do you think _I'm_ answering the phone!!!" Nat shouted crossly into the reciever.

Lowell chuckled, then said reassuringly "Simmer down, little dude..."

"I'll have a team sent out as soon as we have an ECTO available. I promise." Nat said a little more calmly.

Franky was pacing, and fidgetting with one of the piercings in his nose. "I still think this whole situation bites..."

"I know. They get to have the fun, while we're stuck here watching the fort, listening to Nat go psycho on the phone." Lowell cracked. "They'll be back soon..."

"You sound like you don't believe what this Pollux chick is selling." Franky replied.

"If she's right, then she's right. If she's wrong, she's wrong. Me worrying about it isn't gonna change the outcome either way."

Franky glared at him, his cheeks turning red. "Did you listen to what she was saying?! She said we aren't real--that when the...'proper' universe comes back, we'll probably we wiped out!!! This isn't f***ing fair...I finally found something in life I don't hate, and then it's some big lie...and I'm not even real..."

Carla uncurled her legs from the cabinet she was sitting on, and looked at him. "Pollux didn't say we didn't exist, Franky. She just said we weren't Ghostbusters right now..."

_"Ghostbusters 2000 is a complete temporal oddity." Pollux stated._

"We don't exist?" Franky huffed.

"I didn't say that." Pollux replied. "But the Ghostbusters in the year 1999 are a completely different group. Dr. Roland Jackson, Eduardo Rivera, Kylie Griffin, and Garrett Miller."

"So? Almost as bad..." Franky grumbled.

"Since she didn't say we didn't exist...I think we do." Carla continued, hopping off the cabinet. "And if we exist...what's to say we don't become Ghostbusters later or something?" She gave Franky a wink. "I've never thought of you as someone to let a little thing like the reorganization of the universe stop you from getting something you really want."

Lowell rolled his eyes, but not without fondness.

Moira ran down the stairs. "Guys!!! Something is happening!!! Every instrument up there is going crazy!!!"

Nat jumped up from the phone, ready to check the instruments himself, but then cried in shock. "Look!!!"

There was a white light starting to blurr their visions.

"Oh crap...I guess this is it!!!" Lowell said.

"I'll see you on the other side, Tacklebox!!!" Carla shouted at Franky.

"GHOSTBUSTERS 2000 FOREVER!!!!" Franky and Lowell shouted in unison, as the world around them faded to nothing...

* * *

"Where...where are we?" Ray looked around, dumbstruck. Only a second before, they were shooting at the two remaining RoboBusters...then they heard a shout, and a blast of white light, and now...

The place around them was featureless. White walls, white floors. "Looks like a _Doctor Who_ set..." Ray observed.

Venkman, Winston, Egon, and Janine were right next to him. Not far away, Pollux sat on the ground, exhaling deeply. The necklace hanging around her neck was now glowing orange.

Egon pulled out his PKE meter. "I don't have the slightest idea what these readings mean." he said.

Janine helped Pollux up. "You all right?" she asked the younger woman.

"I shall be fine, Miss Melnitz." Pollux replied.

"What happened to Nodus?" Winston asked.

"He is currently contained inside the chrono quartz." Pollux replied, hefting the crystal. "But we don't have much time--with him inside it, it will eventually destablize and shatter, which would not only free him but cause me to be erased from this timeline. We must hurry." She pulled her device out of her vest pocket.

"Do you have any idea what this place is?" Janine asked her.

Pollux arched an eyebrow. "It's a dimensional null zone...it appears to be the same one from which the RoboBusters were emitted."

"Crap." Venkman muttered. "There might be more of those things here?"

"I would just about count on it..." Pollux replied. Then she stopped. "I'm getting a feedback! Another GBX signal!" she looked up, a look of...anticipation crossing her face. "Can it be?"

"Be what?" Egon asked.

"This way!" she pointed, and walked off briskly.

"I hope she'll wait for the rest of the class..." Venkman deadpanned.

"It should be just around..." she said, nearing a juncture. They rounded the corner...

Only to see Albert Nodus (albeit wearing some strange red and purple uniform in place of his suit) and five individuals--one woman and four men--wearing what they could only think of as outlandish, multicolored parodies of their own flight suits and proton packs.

"Oh hell..." Venkman muttered.

* * *

To Be Continued

* * *

"Ghostbusters 2000" based on and expanded from characters in the _Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent_ treatment by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis

* * *

#3540-70406t us230  
077

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**Slimer! And The Extreme Ghostbusters  
GEMINI RISING  
PART FIVE**

By Fritz Baugh  
Ghostbusters Case File 1999-613

* * *

**The Past:**

Back in the 1980's Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Ray Stantz, and Dr. Egon Spengler formed Ghostbusters Inc. Along with Slimer, Winston Zeddmore, and secretary Janine Melnitz, they were so successful they drove themselves out of business by catching all the ghosts. Peter moved to Hollywood, Ray became a used car salesman, Winston became a commuter pilot, and Egon kept watch over the Ghostbusters Central firehouse when he wasn't teaching at New York City Community College.

But when the ghosts returned, Egon recruited four of his students--Roland Jackson, Eduardo Rivera, Kylie Griffin, and Garrett Miller--to become the "Extreme Ghostbusters." Janine is along to help watch over the younger Ghostbusters too.

**Today:**

The Extreme Ghostbusters answered a call from Mayor Edwin MacShayne to investigate a temporal disturbance.

An enigmatic man called "Romulus" appears, and tells them he must talk with Professor Spengler. They take him back to Ghostbusters Central, where he is interrogated by Egon.

Another mysterious being, "Professor Ulforce" briefly appears, reveals that the true timeline has become corrupted and fractured into two imperfect parallel worlds. Pollux, Romulus's partner, has landed on the other.

Romulus tells them of the "true" history of the Ghostbusters: most shockingly, of the marriage of Egon and Janine, and that it was the kidnapping of their newborn twins, Johnathan Christopher and Eden Marie, that started the disruption of the true timeline. And that to restore the proper flow of history, and heal the timeline, they must locate "Nodus".

* * *

**Ghostbusters Central  
77th Street and Fifth Avenue  
New York, NY  
June 13, 1999**

* * *

"Even in the uncorrupt timeline Josiah Nodus is a mystery." Romulus reported as Janine typed away at a computer terminal. "He came practically out of nowhere to become the wonder of the stock market in 1990, buying up an industrial electronics company called Grossjuck Industries. He turned that into Nodus International."

Janine frowned. "That name we recognize!!! Grossjuck was owned by a slimeball named Paul Smart who used me to get ahold of Ghostbusters technology!!!"

"Please continue." Egon coughed, Janine not the only one uncomfortable with the mention of Smart.

"He wasn't any ordinary industrialist, either--he became familiar enough with Professor Spengler's tech to circumvent the PKE meter detection abilities." Romulus answered

"Fascinating." Egon mused. "What else is there that Nodus has done?"

"He hired the Ghostbusters to go to Romania, ostensibly to guard one of his employees, but knowing full well that the man she'd been sent to see was an elder vampire. Then he popped up during the Zodiac Imperative crisis of 1991...he helped the Ghostbusters get to England, then appeared at the end of the event, and tried to attack one of the Zodiac avatars."

"I hate to digress, but just what are those? You've mentioned all of that before..." Roland asked.

"Twelve powerful dudes who attempted to 'judge' humanity. One for each sign of the Zodiac--it was by scanning the Ghostbusters, the Five Who Are One, that they judged humanity fit to survive."

"This all sounds like something from an issue of the _Justice League Of America_!" Ray said excitedly "Anything else?"

"That's all I remember from the GBI case files I've read." Romulus replied.

Janine looked over at the rest of them. "I may have something!!!"

Egon, Romulus, and Ray crowded around the computer screen. "I did find something about a Nodus!!!" Janine told them. "It's at Grossjuck's old high rise off 40th Street. But there's no 'Josiah Nodus' mentioned--the company press releases all talk about their whiz-kid _female_ CEO, _Marie_ Nodus!!!" Janine clicked a link. "They even got a picture of her!!!"

Romulus grumbled when the picture appeared.

The picture was of a tall, well-built woman with attractive features and a head of long blonde hair. There was a cold, ominous look in her blue eyes.

"Romulus?" Janine asked, feeling a strange sort of unease looking at the picture, and from the obvious reaction of their visitor.

"Marie Nodus is a dead ringer for the full-grown Eden Marie Spengler." Romulus told them.

"You're certain of that?" Egon asked.

He gave Egon a look that reminded Janine of the same one Egon gave Peter whenever he said something obtuse. "Believe me, Professor, I know Eden Spengler when I see her."

* * *

Winston zipped up his aqua jump suit, trimmed on the collar and sleeves with red, and regarded himself in the mirror. "Never thought I'd be wearing this again so soon."

"Tell me about it." Peter smirked. His jump suit matched Winston's, but was brown with blue-ish green trim.

"You think any about what that Romulus guy said?" Winston asked him. "About you actually settling down and getting married?"

"You too, remember..." Peter teased.

"I know. But it's really a stretch for you. How many times you been in the celeb magazines with a new girlfriend?"

"I can't help it if I have a way with the ladies. This 'Dana' person must really be something to rope me in..." He paused. "Wierd thing is..."

"What?"

"I don't recognize the name...but I get the wierd feeling that I should."

* * *

"Egon!!!"

He'd been dreading this.

He glanced at her, then went back to the data they'd printed out on Marie Nodus. Egon's eyes narrowed--Marie Nodus, he realized with a start, had the exact same hair color he did...

"Egon, you're avoiding me!!!" Janine said more forcefully, moving in closer.

"I am not avoiding you." he replied bluntly.

"Oh yes you are!!!" she replied.

He finally looked at her, and adjusted his eyeglasses. "Is this because of what Romulus said about our...counterparts? And the relationship they allegedly had?"

He noticed she'd already donned her jump suit--pink with blue trim. His colors, but reversed. "Allegedly? You said yourself you believe him!!!"

He didn't have an easy answer. "That's immaterial..." he finally thought of replying. "We didn't see each other for six years after we downsized..."

"You avoided me for years even before that!!!" she grabbed his glasses and pulled them off. "What have you been afraid of, Egon?"

He shrunk back, realizing that her proximity was causing an uncomfortable set of reactions. His temperature was rising, his heartbeat was accellerating. Blood was starting to flow to places he wasn't used to it flowing to..."I..."

"I kept waiting for a sign out of you!!! And every once in a while I got one!!! You agreed to meet my parents!!! You took me to that carnival.!!! And you acted really really jealous when I dated Paul Smart and Louis Tully!!!" She leaned in closer. "Just what were you afraid of?!"

She kissed him. He felt himself beginning to weaken. To surrender to it. To welcome those strange sensations...

She pulled away. "Why aren't we together, Egon? Romulus says we should've been married by now. You told me you loved me when you freed me from the Lotsabucks...but then, when I came back, it was like none of that happened!!!"

He scratched his head. "You're right...it's almost like..."

"Something's missing." she nodded. "But why can't we remember it?"

He put his glasses on and sighed deeply. "We shall find out the truth soon enough."

* * *

Romulus blinked when the five older Ghostbusters came downstairs. "Um...why is Ray wearing one of Professor Spengler's flight suits?"

Ray looked down at himself and his blue and pink jumpsuit. "Um...I dunno...this is what I wore on Thanksgiving a couple years back..."

"Come to think of it you did wear a tan one with brown trim in the old days." Peter remarked.

"Meesa like seein' you ready for action, Peter." Slimer said glowingly. Peter and Slimer made a high-five gesture together.

Romulus looked like he was ready to be sick again. "Venkman and Slimer are making me gag as bad as the pink flight suit." Janine, in her pink and blue, looked confused. "In real life she would die in pain before wearing one like that..." Romulus explained, shaking his head. "And what happened to the name tags?"

"Name tags?" Eduardo asked.

"On the left chest pocket. They're supposed to have patches with their last names."

"Meesa think that sound silly."

"We'll take the car to Nodus Plaza..." Ray told Roland.

"_Meesa_ not get to go?!" Slimer asked, flabbergasted.

"Only the original four and Janine." Romulus shook his head. "Ulforce was clear on that: 'You must take the Five Who Are One, and find Nodus'. Taking anyone else might be...bad."

"How bad?" Winston asked.

"Only making the temporal disturbance worse bad." Romulus replied.

"Janine and the Geratol Patrol get to go, we have to stay here..." Garrett grumbled. "This stinks..."

"We need you kids to hold down the fort." Peter informed them. "If this doesn't work...or it's a trap or whatever...we need to know somebody's gonna be back here to rescue us."

"Or carry on after we're gone." Winston said brightly.

"You say the nicest things, Zedd..." Peter replied.

"I still think this whole thing stinks..." Garrett repeated.

There was a familiar clunk and electronic whine. "I have had about enough of this..." Kylie snarled, brandishing her proton pistol, aiming it at Romulus.

"Er, Ky..." Eduardo said hesitantly.

"This guy comes in out of nowhere, says the Professor and Janine are supposed to be together, and that I'm supposed to be with _Eduardo_ and we're supposed to believe him?"

"Meesa believe him!!!" Slimer shouted.

"What about me?" Kylie cried. "What if maybe I like Egon too?"

Romulus took a step closer. "Miss Griffin, I know it's hard, but c'mon...in the real timeline, you and Eddie have two kids. Two really beautiful daughters named Conchita and Rose..."

Garrett started to laugh uproariously. "Conchita?!"

"Shut up!" Eduardo snarled at him. "That's a great name..."

"Rose?" Kylie asked. "Like my great grandmother?"

"Exactly." Romulus nodded.

Kylie lowered her gun. "All right...maybe the 'real' Eduardo has better table manners..."

* * *

**Nodus Plaza, Off 40th Street**

* * *

"One more question..." Egon asked. "You and that man both referred to...the Spengler children as the 'Gemini Twins'. It seems conspicuous in light of the other astrologically themed elements of the 'Five Who Are One' concept..."

Romulus looked out the window. "I'm not sure what it means myself. I first heard that when Delphia contacted Pollux and me. Pollux even picked that name as a sorta...nod to our mission."

Peter blinked.

"Castor and Pollux were twins in Greek myth. " Ray explained from the passenger seat. "They're also the names of the two brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini."

"We're here..." Winston said from the driver seat, pulling the ECTO-1 to a stop.

All five Ghostbusters had an uncomfortable sense of deja vu as they left the car.

"I really hate this place!!!" Janine muttered.

"Agreed." Egon stated.

"Sounds like at least some of it happened in your timeline the way it did in the uncorrupted one." Romulus nodded. "In the complete timeline, it was not long before you guys went out of business the first time, in 1986..."

"We never went out of business in 1986." Ray said. "And for us this all happened in, what..."

"1988." Egon said simply.

"And what do you mean 'the first time'?" Winston asked.

"You got sued and shut down over the Gozer case." Romulus answered. "It finally came to trial and the court order was issued in 1986..."

"The only time we went out of business was when we caught all the ghosts and had to downsize!!!" Janine said.

"Egon..." Peter grumbled. "Why didn't you guys come up with lighter proton packs?" He struggled into his proton pack.

Romulus looked up at the building, then at his device. "The readings from the GBX confirm it...there's definitely an anomaly emitting delta and epsilon particles on the top floor of that building."

"Epsilon and delta? I was in Tri Kuppa Bru myself..." Peter cracked.

"Delta particles--time dihalation. Epsilon--dimensional dihilation." Egon explained simply.

"The whole package. Great." Winston deadpanned.

* * *

The secretary understandably blinked when the six of them got off the elevator. "The Ghostbusters? But nobody reported any ghosts here..." the secretary said, confused.

Peter sidled up to the desk. "Your talents are clearly wasted here. I'm a big Hollywood type nowadays, and maybe I could use you in a movie... What's your name, cupcake?"

Egon and Janine both rolled their eyes in unison at Peter's old schtick.

"Er..."

"It's worth a try..." Winston shrugged. "Tell your boss that famous Hollywood agent Peter Venkman is here. The guy who Bill Murray played in the movies."

"Look, give me a minute, here..." The phone on her desk buzzed. "Yes, Ms. Nodus? Well, the Ghostbusters--the old Ghostbusters--are here, and some other guy..."

"Tell her it's urgent." Romulus said forcefully.

"One of them said it was urgent." the secretary said, then sat there for a few seconds. "Yes ma'am..."

She gulped as she put down the phone. "She says she already knew you were here, and to send you right in."

The large door opened, and a blonde woman stepped out. She was in a business suit. "Lydia Van Horn, Ms. Nodus's personal assistant." she introduced herself. "She said she needed to see the six of you privately..."

"Lovely hair..." Peter commented, grinning.

Lydia wasn't even looking at him, instead giving Romulus an extremely approving look. "I don't suppose you'd be up for an even more private meeting? Assuming Ms. Nodus doesn't ask you first...you definitely look like the type she'd go for..."

"You have no idea how incredibly disturbing that fact may be..." Romulus said simply.

They entered the office, and Lydia closed the door behind them.

"Nice..." Ray whistled.

"Mine's nicer." Peter retorted.

"Greetings." a rich contralto voice cut through the room. "I admit, the appearance of the Ghostbusters in my humble establishment was unexpected." the chair at the desk swung around, and its occupant stood up. "Marie Nodus, CEO of Nodus International. And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

Janine gasped...the picture she'd seen somehow didn't do her justice. She was tall, with a sensual build obvious even under an expensive Italian suit. She realized the woman's hair wasn't just blonde...she could swear it was the exact same shade as Egon's, and her eyes were just as blue, just as intense...but so cold it made his look fiery.

"I brought'em here, Miz Nodus." Romulus answered, stepping forward. His face had hardened.

"Yes...I bet you did..." Nodus replied. "I would assume that if the services of the famous original Ghostbusters are required, it must be a matter of some importance."

Egon was feeling more deja vu than ever. Like Janine, he was rivetted to this woman...he realized it was very similar to the strange, unwelcome emotional reaction he had when he'd first met Romulus a few hours before.

"Utmost." Romulus answered. "Let us start with this: what can you tell us about the whereabouts of Josiah Nodus?"

Nodus raised an eyebrow, in a curiously...Spenglerian fashion. "My father is sadly no longer in this world."

"Josiah Nodus...is you father?" Romulus replied. It didn't escape the notice of the Ghostbusters that this seemed to take him aback.

"He made me everything I am today." Nodus answered.

Janine stepped beside Romulus. "What about Johnathan Christopher and Eden Marie Spengler? Those names ring a bell?"

Nodus smirked. "Yes...I suspected that incident in the park was something like this. I had been warned that those dedicated to the old order would make a last, desperate attempt to stop what is happening."

"You _are_ behind this..." Romulus stated.

"In a manner of speaking..." Nodus replied. "It all depends on your point of view--in our eyes, what we are doing is what needs to be done to put an imperfect, illogical universe to rest, and build a better one in its place."

Ray Stantz unhooked his neutrona wand. "I'm not completely sure what you mean by that, but I'm pretty sure I don't like the sound of it..."

" 'Our' eyes?" Winston asked.

"My father, my brother, and myself..." Nodus answered. "And noone, not the fabled Five Who Are One, not a temporal oddity from a timeline that will soon be no more, will stop us!!!"

"My butt..." Peter snarled; all five Ghostbusters now had their neutrona wands at ready.

"It will soon be too late for you to stop it." Marie Nodus smirked. "Even if you were capable..." She sneered, and there was a blast of orange light.

When the crushing pain, like a vise had been put around his head and completely closed on it, Ray realized he was on the floor, Peter and Winston next to him. "You okay?" he asked Winston.

"No." Winston grumbled.

"I'm fine..." Peter muttered, clearly NOT fine...

Ray looked up...he saw Egon and Janine, woozy, in pain, but at least managing to be up to a kneel.

More surprisingly, Romulus was still standing.

"Eh?" Nodus asked, clearly not expecting this result.

"The Chronomancers' know their stuff. This is probably one of the reasons I'm here." Romulus said, a defiant tone growing in his voice. "Whatever power Josiah Nodus has awakened in you is useless against me..."

"You _are_ him..." Nodus snarled. "Immune to my power you might be, but I can still destroy you!!!" It was quite obvious she was now genuinely angry. She pulled back the left sleeve of her suit to reveal a high-tech armband. "Protocol Sixty Six!!! Authorization Marie Curie Nodus!!!"

Egon was trying to struggle to get up...trying to figure out why he and Janine were only staggered while his friends were blasted to the ground--and Romulus was unaffected--when three shimmering doorways opened.

Three robots stepped out of the doorways, which disappeared behind them. _"RoboBuster Protocol Sixty Six: Extermination of All Intruders Threatening A Member of the Nodus Family. Protocol Activated"_

"Look out!!!" Ray shouted as one of the robots fired a proton beam out of its forearm housing. Peter barely evaded the blast.

"RoboBusters?!" Janine cried. "They're different, but still..."

They did indeed vaguely resemble the robot Paul Smart had built years before, but unlike the original RoboBuster they were truly bipedal, and their heads connected to their neck instead of to the humps of systemry on their backs.

"My RoboBusters will take care of the Five Who Are One..." Nodus sneered. "You, Lord Gemini, are mine!!!" With that she whipped out a gun, and fired. Romulus was thrown into the wall by a blast that looked conspicuously like a proton blast.

"Janine! Look out!!!" Egon shouted, shooting the robot that had tried to blast Janine.

The RoboBuster seemed to halt suddenly. _"Error...Protocol Error...Psychokinetic Trace matching on-file entry of..."_

"Override, you misprogrammed pile of junk!!!" Nodus shouted.

Romulus used the distraction to shake off the blast, and charged Nodus, bodychecking her to the wall.

Winston fired a beam at one of the RoboBusters. It splashed off of it.

"It's proton shielded!!!" Ray shouted.

"Then what the heck do we do?!" Peter shouted back, now hiding behind Nodus's desk. All four of his comrades ran back to join him.

"Are you all right?" Egon asked Janine.

"I'm fine, Egon!!!" she replied, hugging him.

"Hey, Ray...you still got Len Wolfman on your speed dial? Captain Steel would really come in handy right now." Peter asked

"Sure. You got the time to wait for him to conjure Steel up?"

"Not unless he can get here six seconds ago." Winston grumbled

The three robots stood at the other side of Nodus's desk, in a line. _"Prepare to fire."_

Nodus shot Romulus again. "You cannot stop me...you cannot stop us...this is what I've been preparing for my whole life!!!"

"A life that was stolen, Nodus..." Romulus replied. "_Two_ lives that were stolen..." He dodged the next blast, and knocked the pistol out of Nodus's hand.

_Whoa..._ Janine smirked, noticing. _If I didn't know better I'd swear there's a bit of a Brooklyn scrapper in that one..._

"We might try aiming for a joint..." Egon said.

"Oh, Egon!!! That's brilliant!!!" Janine said excitedly.

"Knee or elbow?" Ray asked

"Knee." Winston said. "It should knock them down."

"Like the kids do it...Ready on three..." Egon said.

"I don't care if you look like my brother..." Nodus snarled. "I WILL kill you!!!" She pulled another pistol out of her jacket, and fired again, point blank.

"I really hope this works..." Ray said.

"Been nice knowing you guys if it doesn't." Peter sighed.

Janine grabbed Egon and kissed him hard.

He looked dumbfounded for a second.

Winston shook his head with a smirk.

"THREE!!!" The five Ghostbusters jumped from behind the desk, and fired.

"I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, that you are still alive." Nodus said, both impressed and gloating at the same time. "While a normal human being would've been cleaved in half by that blast...well, we're not quite normal humans, are we?" She blasted him again.

Romulus knew another blast or two, though, would do it..._Hurts to even more...but I gotta get up...'cause the whole universe's balls are in the vise here!!!_

One of the robots fell, it's leg sheared off.

Romulus reached for his belt, to undo it, use it as a weapon, then his hand brushed against the chrono-quartz crystal. It had come out of his collar during the fight. It was starting to pulsate.

With a lightning quick motion, he lept into the air, and smacked the crystal against Marie Nodus's forehead.

Nodus screamed in agony, and the world around them faded in a blast of white light...

* * *

**Near Ghostbusters Central**

* * *

"Today's the day..." the vaguely Hispanic teenager grumbled.

"We march right in there." the blonde girl beside him added.

"And insist we be given our due." the third member of the party, a boy with a red flattop, finished.

"How dare Doctor Spengler hire a bunch of new kids!!!" the girl said angrily. "When he could've called us!!!"

"We beat the Boogeyman and Samhain singlehandedly!!!" the redhead added, just as angry. "What had these losers done before they lucked into this?"

"I was the original Hispanic wisecracker!!!" the third one whined. "If Doctor Spengler asked, I could've grown a dumb goatee too!!!"

"So let's do it!!!" the redheaded kid pumped his fist in the air.

"JUNIOR GHOSTBUSTERS FOREVER!!!!" all three shouted in unison.

Then there was a loud noise, like a truck backfiring.

* * *

Eduardo was grumbling when there was a knock on the door. He opened it to see a policeman and two beefy guys standing there. "Er...can I help you officer?"

"Er, yeah, we...have a bit of a situation." the policeman said. "These guys backed over three teenagers who were hiding in that alleyway next to this place--any chance you know who they might be?"

"I dunno...maybe I'd better get some of the others?" Eduardo said.

"IDs we found said their names were Donald Rodriguez, Catharine Mueller, and Jason Rafferty"

"Don't ring any bells to me." Eduardo shrugged. "Let me go get my friends..."

After Eduardo closed the door, the two workmen started quarrelling again. "Dammit, Larry, I told you to check before I backed the truck up..."

"I did, Joe! I swear!!!" Larry replied. "But they were behind that ad sign--I didn't think anybody would be hiding back there!!!"

"Simmer down, guys." the policeman shook his head. "So far this sounds like a tragic accident, nothing more."

* * *

"What do you mean some kids got run over by a truck?" Kylie asked incredulously.

"That's what the cop said. Donald somethin', Catharine whozit, and Jason somethin' else..."

Slimer's jaw dropped. "Meesa Junior Ghostbusters buddies?! Oh no!!!" he screamed, and flew out the door.

Eduardo, Kylie, and Garrett all looked at each other. "What the heck is a 'Junior Ghostbuster'?" Eduardo asked.

Roland ran down the stairs. "Has anybody heard from the Professor?!"

"No..." Garrett replied. "What's wrong?"

"Every instrument in the place is going haywire!" Roland answered, looking on the verge of panic.

Kylie jumped up, ready to check the instruments herself, but then cried in shock. "Look!!!"

There was a white light starting to blurr their visions.

"Oh heck..." Garrett breathed.

"Time to find out if this Romulus guy is on the level..." Roland said, saying a prayer.

Just before their world faded to nothing, Kylie grabbed Eduardo and kissed him hard.

* * *

"Where...where are we?" Ray looked around, dumbstruck. Only a second before, they were shooting at the two remaining RoboBusters...then they heard a shout, and a blast of white light, and now...

The place around them was featureless. White walls, white floors. "Looks like a _Doctor Who_ set..." Ray observed.

Peter, Winston, Egon, and Janine were right next to him. Not far away, Romulus sat on the ground, exhaling deeply. The necklace hanging around his neck was now glowing orange.

Egon pulled out his PKE meter. "I don't have the slightest idea what these readings mean." he said.

"Oh my gosh!!!" Janine cried, seeing Romulus's wounds. "Are you all right?"

"It's not as bad as it looks, Miss Melnitz." Romulus replied, nevertheless groaning as he got up. "I recover pretty quick..."

"What happened to Nodus?" Winston asked.

"She's currently contained inside the chrono quartz." Romulus replied, hefting the crystal. "But we don't have much time--with her inside it, it'll soon start to destablize and eventually shatter, which not only frees her but causes me to be erased from this timeline. We gotta hurry.." He pulled his device out of his belt pocket.

"Do you have any idea what this place is?" Janine asked him.

Romulus arched an eyebrow. "It's a dimensional null zone...it appears to be the same one from which the RoboBusters were emitted."

"Great." Peter muttered. "There might be more of those things here?"

"I'd just about count on it..." Romulus replied. Then he stopped. "I'm getting a feedback! Another GBX signal!" he looked up, a look of...anticipation crossing his face. "Can it be?"

"Be what?" Egon asked.

"This way!" he pointed, and walked off briskly.

"I hope he'll wait for the rest of the class..." Peter deadpanned.

"It should be just around..." he said, nearing a juncture. They rounded the corner...

Only to see Marie Nodus (albeit wearing a blue and pink outfit in place of her suit) and five individuals who seemed extrememly out of place, even clad in tan flight suits and movie prop-accurate proton packs: movie actors Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts.

"Oh nuts..." Peter muttered.

* * *

To Be Continued

* * *

#3541-70506w  
078

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

**GEMINI RISING  
PART SIX**

* * *

**Interlude**

* * *

There was a wheezing, groaning noise that split the silence.

A woman with short dark hair, and an old man sitting in a high-tech chair appeared from the ether. "What is this place?" the man asked.

"The domain of someone I think you probably would've gotten along well with, Ulforce." the woman replied, a slight smirk despite the grave state of things. "Sarim-Lar, Lord of the Izumo, the Warrior of the Thunders. And perhaps most intriguingly of all, the self-declared Voice of Knowledge."

Ulforce looked around, and stood up from his chair. He walked with a slight limp. "You knew him?"

"Not directly. But the Techno-Mage did...even Zandrik met him once, not long after the turning of the Age in 1991. For many centuries, he was rival to another being who coveted knowledge: the Master of Shadows."

Ulforce looked at her. "With everything else going on, why are we here, Delphia?"

"Sarim-Lar's null zone is at a different nexus of temporal activity than mine--one more advantageous to our efforts. And from here...perhaps..."

"Perhaps what?"

"I had intended for many years to visit this place, ever since something happened that doesn't very often: a prophesy of the Forever Swimmer, the oldest of the Children, has proven false."

Ulforce looked shocked.

"She forsaw the Fall of the Lord of Knowledge at the Cusp of the Millenium, and that he would fall at the hands of his final student: one of the Five Who Are One. Professor Egon Spengler."

"That's impossible." Ulforce shook his head. "I wasn't the Professor's closest confidant, but neither he nor Doctor Venkman ever indicated..."

"But that's just it, Ulforce--he didn't serve as Sarim-Lar's student. When the time Nuranalla saw came, Spengler was indeed carried away by the Lord of the Izumo, and tested. But he refused the offer. He was returned to Earth--and Sarim-Lar was instead destroyed by someone else."

Delphia inhaled. "It is time we find out who..." She gestured. "Ars...intelligo...tempus..."

The light around them swirled...and then, phantom images came into focus...

_Professor Egon Spengler stood there, a ball of light near his hand. He looked younger than Ulforce ever remembered seeing him--but at the same time, with eyes showing a weariness he never saw either. He was in a sweater and tie..his hair curiously limp and simply gathered at the back.___

Facing Egon was a giant anthropomorphic beetle, with a maroon carapace, standing some seven feet high. It's head, though, was bloated, with a huge, pulsating brain apparently having broken through it's helmet-like covering. Four of it's limbs resembled arms, but the last two were thicker, and more resembled legs...and were covered in a rather incongrous garment that looked, for all the world, like khaki cargo pants.

"Sarim-Lar?" Ulforce asked.

"Yes." Delphia replied. __

"Your offer sounds generous, make no doubt about that. But I cannot accept it." Egon inhaled deeply, and turned to face the creature, his eyes hardening with determination. "It's a false choice--because my emotions. My

There was a rumbling. The sound of thunder.

Egon stood his ground.

_"It was my humanity that allowed me to pass your tests...if I had never known Ray Stantz, I probably never would have recognized the first puzzle as being from an episode of_ Doctor Who_. My theological discussions with Winston Zeddemore were what impressed upon me the meaning of the chicken and egg conundrum. And strangely enough, as my parents didn't believe in toys, it was a jock freshman named Peter Venkman who introduced me to the one your third test emulated."_

_"My feelings don't shackle me, Lord Izumo--they're what drive me to achieve what I have."_

_The creature stood silent for ten long seconds. A sparkling of violet light played around his armored carapace._

_Then he flexed his hand, and the ball of light it held dissapated._

_"You disappoint me, Egon Spengler. Very well, then...return to your shattered, miserable human life...wallow in the inane affairs of the chattering apes you call your friends. Burn with the frustrated lust for the one that spurned you. One day, you will look back upon your life and regret this decision..."_

_Egon vanished into a haze of light..._

_The insect like creature seethed. "All this time and effort...a mind capable of shattering the universe...what a waste."_

_"That's funny, Sarim-Lar...I once said the same about you."_

_The creature turned, and a black garbed man was standing there._

_"Who are you, to talk to the Voice of Knowledge so brazenly?!" the creature snarled, the violet lightning starting to play about him again. "I will not..."_

_Sarim-Lar stopped cold in mid threat. "YOU?!" the creature recoiled. "But this is impossible!!!"_

_"Impossible? When I'm standing right here, beam primed to deliver the same fate that was in store for you anyway?"_

_"I...I..." the creature stammered. "I don't...I don't understand!!!"_

_"That's exactly what the Master of Shadows said when he was defeated."_

__

The beam fired.

"Josiah Nodus destroyed Sarim-Lar?" Ulforce said, even more shocked than earlier.

Delphia looked as close to shocked herself as he'd ever seen her. In truth...it'd been a very long time since anything had surprised her to this magnitude. "Nodus...the Knot with no past. The man who interfered with the Zodiac Lords and now threatens reality itself. Who could this man be? How could he have gained this power without us realizing it? Why did he interfere with what we foresaw? Who is this man?!"

"We know one thing, from the sounds of it." Ulforce mused. "It was someone Sarim-Lar knew. And feared."

* * *

**End Interlude**

* * *

Peter Venkman had trouble believing what he was seeing.

Standing right in front of him, his three Ghostbuster companions, their secretary, and the mysterious woman called "Pollux", was the man they had just defeated: Albert Einstein Nodus, and five weird-looking people--four men and one woman--dressed in pastel-colored parodies of their own flight suits, carrying what even looked to be some sort of bizarre proton packs.

The four men all looked like they were at least sixty years old. One was a black man, with greying hair, dressed in aqua and red. There was a pudgy, balding one in blue and pink. The tall one with the blond crew cut and ponytail wore the same colors, and was holding some sort of device with sparking prongs. There was a woman with long red hair, wearing a vomitously pink and blue jump suit. But the worst one had to be the stupid-looking one with the brown mullet in a brown and blue-green outfit.

"Oh hell..." Venkman muttered, and charged his neutrona wand.

* * *

Peter Venkman had trouble believing what he was seeing.

Standing right in front of him, his three Ghostbuster companions, their secretary, and the mysterious man called "Romulus", was the woman they had just defeated: Marie Curie Nodus, and the cast of the two movies that had been made based on the Ghostbusters' adventures. Sortof.

Peter was a little confused, though. Ernie Hudson didn't have white streaks in his hair like this guy did. Dan Aykroyd, well, okay, he looked fine...but the last time he'd seen Harold Ramis he was much greyer and much fatter than the one he was seeing. Why in the world was Annie Potts sporting that same haircut she'd had in 1989? And what was that egotistical ass Bill Murray, who'd kept sneering and refusing to do any more Ghostbuster stuff, doing here in full Ghostbuster uniform: tan jump suit, movie prop proton pack, the whole nine yards?

"Aw nuts..." Peter muttered, and charged his neutrona wand.

* * *

They were in the Null Zone headquarters of the one called Nodus, the one who had shredded time to pieces on June 13, 1999, by abducting two infants. She had been sent, along with one other, to try and restore time to it's proper flow. She'd found herself in a world she barely recognized, one where much of what could've gone wrong in her world did. With the distorted versions of the Five Who Are One, they'd defeated a opponent with an impossible likeness and claim, and made their way here.

Now standing before her was...dare she hope?

"Romulus?" she asked, tentatively.

* * *

They were in the Null Zone headquarters of the one called Nodus, the one who had shredded time to pieces on June 13, 1999, by abducting two infants. He had been sent, along with one other, to try and restore time to it's proper flow. He'd found himself in a world he barely recognized, a bubbly caricature of the one he knew. With the distorted versions of the Five Who Are One, they'd defeated a opponent with an impossible likeness and claim, and made their way here.

Now standing before him was...dare he hope?

"Pollux?" he asked, tentatively.

* * *

The man in red and purple, and the woman in blue and pink stepped toward each other. The blond man raised an eyebrow--the colors the woman was wearing, he realized, were the same as his. "This is Pollux?"

"Fascinating...." the man who looked like Harold Ramis mused. "So this, then, is Romulus..."

"Egon..." the woman who looked like Annie Potts said. The blond man looked at her when she said this. "Why does Romulus look exactly like Albert Nodus?"

"Gosh, Egon!!!" the woman in pink said. "Pollux looks just like Marie Nodus!!!"

"I didn't want to be Castor or Helen..." Romulus said.

"I preferred not be be Remus." Pollux replied.

"And neither of us wanted to keep spelling 'Clymenestra' " they both said in unison.

"Huh?" the man with the auburn buzzcut said.

"That's the same thing they said back at headquarters..." the man who looked like Dan Aykroyd added.

With that, Pollux and Romulus shared a quick hug. "Thank Einstien....it really is you..." Pollux said, with a sigh of relief.

"Well, unless two people from different universes guessed our code phrase..." Romulus replied. "And if you did that, well, close enough for me..."

"Would someone care to explain what the hell is going on?" the man who looked like Bill Murray broke in. "You can imagine we're all just a little on edge here..."

"Is that supposed to be Venkman?" Romulus asked. Pollux nodded.

"You said that Albert Nodus looked like John Spengler..." the man who looked like Ernie Hudson said. "Is that him? And who are those people?"

The man in aqua looked at him. "I was just about to say the same thing, sorta--Romulus said Marie Nodus looked like Eden Spengler."

Romulus and Pollux looked at each other. "Even split into two selves Winston figures things out..." Pollux said, with a slight smirk.

Both redheaded women's eyes went wide.

"All I wanna know is why we're traipsing around another dimension and run into a bunch of has-been Saturday Night Live actors..." the man with the brown mullet said.

The blond man and the man who looked like Harold Ramis were each studying--in a curiously similar fashion--vaguely similar devices. "Hm..." the blond one said. "This reading is strange."

"I would surmise you are getting a reading similar to my own?" the man who looked like Harold Ramis asked. "A static wave consistant with psychokinetic feedback?"

"Yes." the blond man replied. "Like a set of identical signals are being bounced off of each other."

Romulus stood in front of both groups. "We may not have a lot of time, so let me tell you what you're already guessing: Pollux and I were chosen for this mission because of our own unique relationship with this situation: we were born on June 13, 1999. And this all affects us just as personally as it does you." He paused. "Because we're Eden and John Spengler, from the year 2024."

"We were contacted on our twenty-fifth birthday by Lady Delphia and Professor Ulforce, the Chronomancers--Lady Delphia, a mistress of time magics, and Ulforce, the leading temporal physicist of the Twenty First Century." Pollux--Eden--continued. "They'd detected the massive upheaval in time centered around our day of birth."

"Because of various cycles in the time flow, the exact quarter century made it a relatively easy and safe jump." Romulus--Johnathan--continued. He pulled out the glowing orange chrono quartz crystal. "Ulforce gave us these, which as I explained to my bunch earlier, would shield me from the normal temporal paradoxes."

Eden pulled out her similar crystal. "The same. But then we each ended up in a past that wasn't our own." She looked at John. "Delphia said Ulforce was contacting you..."

John nodded. "Yeah."

"Time has been divided into two imperfect causalities." the man who looked like Harold Ramis said.

"We were told the same thing." the blond man added.

"And that the Five Who Are One must go to the nexus of the disturbance..." the man who looked like Dan Aykroyd said.

"Then..." the pudgy, redheaded man looked at "Aykroyd" with wide eyes. "Then that means..."

"When the timeline was fractured, so were the people in it." Romulus continued. "Some were shunted to one causality or the other. While some were divided into two imperfect temporal versions, one in each causality. Being at the center of the disturbance, by virtue of their role in bringing us into being, the Five Who Are One were among those split into two versions."

"The ten of you." Eden finished.

The Venkman who looked like Bill Murray and the Peter in the brown mullet blinked, each fixing each other with looks of intense disdain. "That idiot is supposed to be me?" Murray Venkman sneered.

"That egotistical jerk is supposed to be me?" the Peter in brown replied. "He looks nothing like me!!!"

"Wow!!!" the pudgy, nearly baldheaded man said excitedly.

"This is kinda cool..." the man who looked like Dan Aykroyd replied. "The other me sounds like Fred from _Scooby Doo_..."

"There was a lot of things in the employment questionnaire..." the Winston who looked like Ernie Hudson shook his head. "I'm pretty sure 'duplicates from another dimension' weren't..."

The Winston in blue nodded in agreement. "Being a Ghostbuster is never dull, is it?"

The Janine in pink went up to the one in tan. "Then you must be me!!! Gosh!!! This is so neat!!!"

The Annie Potts Janine looked like she wanted to throw up. "There is no way I would ever be that perky...I would kill myself first."

"Fascinating." both Egons said in unison. They both looked at Pollux and Romulus. "And you two, then, are our children?" the blond Egon asked.

"Oh my Gosh...that's right!!!" the Janine in pink squeaked. "That explains why Romulus has the same color hair as I do!"

The Annie Potts Janine gave her the skunk eye. "Could you do me a favor and not talk? You're bringing a whole new definition to self-loathing..."

Pink Janine blinked, confusedly. "Huh?"

The Ramis Egon cocked an eyebrow. "If you two are Johnathan and Eden Spengler, then who are the beings contained in your crystals?"

Romulus and Pollux looked at each other. "We really can't be sure...but it's probable they're alternates of us." Eden replied.

"When Nodus kidnapped them, he raised them...us...in a different time track. They were definitely part of Nodus's plot." John added.

"So what next?" The Hudson Winston asked. "We let them out? We go straight to this Nodus character? What?"

"Ulforce and Delphia are almost literally holding the entire Timestream together with their bare hands." John shook his head. "Whatever it is, it's gotta be quick."

"This whole thing is making my head hurt..." the Aykroyd Ray commented.

Eden looked at him. "I think it's simple. You, Doctor Stantz..." and then she turned to the pudgy Ray "And you, Doctor Stantz, are both the 'real' Ray Stantz. You were divided into two imperfect duplicates when Nodus shredded the Timeline. But here, in this Null Zone, with both of you present...it should be possible to recombine you into the genuine Ray Stantz."

"Imperfect duplicates? Like Bizarros?" the redheaded Ray asked.

"Recombine? How?" Aykroyd Ray asked.

"Well, that might be the tricky part..." John shrugged.

The two Egons soaked this information in, and were now muttering calculations and passing their meters back and forth. "I think we can do it..." Ramis Egon said.

"Our energy signatures are already synchronized." the blond Egon explained. "It offers confirmation of your assertion that we're essentially the same being divided into two imperfect time tracks."

"And then there's this..." the Ramis Egon said, poking the blond Egon. When his hand touched him, there was a brief, reddish electric sparkle.

"Our forms are already trying to merge..." Blond Egon continued. "I think all it would take is just simply _allowing_ it to happen..."

"But Egon..." the Janine in pink asked. "How do we know if it'll work?"

In a unified motion, both Egons shut off their meters and returned them to their belt packs. "By testing it."

John and Eden looked at each other. "Should we try to stop them?" John asked.

"It's not our decision." Eden replied.

The two Egons embraced, and for a few seconds, nothing happened other than a brief sparkle of red light.

"Egon, I think this is crap and all you're doing is looking gay..." the Murray Venkman grumbled.

Just about then, both Egons were surrounded by red light, and two voices shouted with agony.

"EGON!!!" Both Janines cried.

"Fool can't be stopped whenever he sets his mind to something..." Hudson Winston shook his head, but not without fondness. The Winston in blue next to him nodded in agreement, also not without fondness.

"Oh shit..." Murray Venkman gasped.

"I think...I think it's working!" the redheaded Ray cried.

_I am Doctor Egon Spengler_

_I was born on November 21, 1944._

_My parents didn't believe in toys, though I had one Slinky. Before I straightened it._

_I became interested in the paranormal. It is not logical, but I did. Though I can't remember why..._

_I met Peter Venkman in college. He introduced me to Raymond Stantz later, after Ray had worked in private industry._

_In 1984, we formed Ghostbusters Inc._

_In 1984, we hired Winston Zeddemore to be the fourth Ghostbuster._

_In 1984, I met Janine Melnitz. She fell in love with me, but I couldn't return the feeling._

_After we defeated Gozer, we were sued and forced out of business for five years._

_When we reunited, Janine had found someone else. She fell in love with Louis Tully._

_Peter ran for mayor, with Winston as his running mate. He won, and Peter resigned on his first day. Peter hates me now...why can't I remember why?_

_Janine is married to Louis Tully._

_Needing additional personell, we hired the five members of Ghostbusters 2000._

_I still love Janine, though that feeling is improper, worthless, and moot anyway..._

_That is my life? No...that isn't right..._

The flourescing form howled, a strange modulated cry of two voices.

"This is nuts!!!" the Peter Venkman in brown said.

"For once, I agree with him..." the Peter Venkman who looked like Bill Murray added.

_I am Professor Egon Spengler_

_I was born on December 5, 1956_

_My mother doted on me...called me "Baby Spookums"...my Uncle Cyrus was a harsh taskmaster...why can't I remember my father?_

_I became interested in the paranormal because the Boogeyman lived in my closet._

_I got a degree in grade school. I met Peter Venkman and Raymond Stantz in college._

_In the 1980's, we formed Ghostbusters Inc._

_In the 1980's, we hired Winston Zeddemore to be the fourth Ghostbuster._

_In the 1980's, I met Janine Melnitz. Why can't I remember the date more clearly? She fell in love with me, but I could never admit that I began to return that feeling._

_After we defeated Gozer, we adopted new uniforms and had a movie made about us._

_Janine got tired of my indecision...when we hired Louis Tully, she flirted with him for a brief time just to make me jealous._

_We defeated all the ghosts. We drove ourselves out of business. The rest all left, and I was alone._

_Janine left me...why can't I remember why? But she came back..._

_Needing to defeat the disease spirit Achira, I recruited the Extreme Ghostbusters._

_I still love Janine. I always will. Why can't I ever admit that to her?_

_No...that one's not right either..._

* * *

Both Janines stared, their eyes beginning to tear up. They each whispered the name of the men...the man...that they both loved and always would.

Both Pollux and Romulus spared them a quick look that spoke volumes. Romulus looked at his chrono quartz--he realized it was starting to glow, but it's ominous pulsation was slowing.

The blurr began to shift...two outlines began to become one outline.

The being at the center of the glow opened one eye...he saw two right arms, as though through an out of focus camera lense...

Then they snapped together. The lens came into focus at last.

_I..._

_I..._

_I REMEMBER!!!_

_I am Professor Egon Spengler_

_I was born on November 21, 1957_

_I am the son of Edison and Katharine Spengler. My parents didn't believe in toys, though I had one Slinky. Before I straightened it. My mother doted on me...called me "Baby Spookums"...my father and Uncle Cyrus were harsh taskmasters._

_I became interested in the paranormal because the Boogeyman lived in my closet._

_I got my first degree at age twelve. I met Peter Venkman in college. He introduced me to Raymond Stantz later. We worked together constantly save for a period Ray worked in private industry._

_In 1983, we formed Ghostbusters Inc._

_In 1983, we hired Winston Zeddemore to be the fourth Ghostbuster._

_In 1983, I met Janine Melnitz. She fell in love with me, but I could never admit that I began to return that feeling._

_After we defeated Gozer, we adopted new uniforms. A movie was made about us, but we were also sued and forced out business for two years._

_When we reunited, Janine got tired of my indecision...she had an affair with Louis Tully._

_I finally told Janine I loved her. We were together...but.._

_The Zodiac Imperative crippled Earth's psychokinetic network...the ghosts simply stopped appearing. Then Janine had her accident...it all fell apart. The rest all left, and I was alone._

_Janine married Louis Tully. But she divorced him. She came back..._

_Needing to defeat the disease spirit Achira, I recruited the Extreme Ghostbusters._

_I still loved Janine. I told her that. We're married at last. And just a few hours ago..._

The red glow faded, and one man fell out of it. Pollux and Romulus caught him as he fell.

Both Janines shifted closer.

The Murray Venkman watched the result with some trepidation. The man who fell out of the "reintegration", at first glance, looked more like the one the idiot with the mullet had arrived with. Blond hair, a blue flight suit trimmed in pink...but then he noticed the pattern of his hair whitening. The nametag on that flight suit. And the design of his proton pack...

The Mullet Venkman watched the result with shock. The man who fell out of the "reintegration" looked very much like "his" Egon, but younger--more like the man he'd fought ghosts with every week in the 1980's. But at the same time, the greater detail to his flight suit and proton pack recalled the wierd Harold Ramis Egon who'd arrived with the egomaniac who looked like Bill Murray.

"Egon?" both Janines said at once.

"Professor?" Pollux asked, not hiding her concern.

His eyes shot open. A feral shout came out of his mouth. "EDEN!!! JOHNATHAN!!! YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM YOU BASTARD!!! NODUUUUUUUS!!!"

He slumped in their arms.

"Wow..." Aykroyd Ray managed to say, which put him ahead of everyone else.

"I remember..." Egon steadied himself, and rubbed his temple. "I remember I was leading my Mom, and the Melnitzes, and the other Ghostbusters to the recovery room...when Nodus appeared. He blocked the way with a forcefield..."

_"Were that I were only here to offer my congratulations, Professor Spengler, but that would be...inappropriate, somehow. If only you knew the irony...that in the choice you made, the choice I could never have forseen, you solved the riddle that had confounded me, in a way I never could have anticipated. You have my appreciation..."___

"And now, the Gemini twins will be introduced to

"As we were hammering at the field...my Meter began to detect a massive delta energy flux...and then..." He opened his eyes, and regarded his right hand. "It was like my entire field of vision shifted out of focus...there were two of me...and then I was here."

"But...what about the battle in Nodus Plaza?" The redheaded Ray asked.

"We certainly can attest that just a minute ago, there were two Egons, and they turned into you!" Hudson Winston added.

"I...I remember that too..." Egon replied. "But it's like some sort of overlapping dream. Vivid...but just a dream."

Both Janines moved a step closer to him. Then gave each other a vaguely...jealous look.

"Yeah, this has got to be something you've dreamed about more than once..." the Murray Venkman rolled his eyes, giving Egon a smirk.

"What was that lightshow with the crystal about?" Aykroyd Ray asked.

"When the two Egons became one, there must have been a dispersal of temporal energy, which they absorbed when they were split apart." Pollux replied. "It's stabilized the degradation of the crystals."

"One part of the universe became whole again." John added. "It's lessening the paradox and the breakdown."

Egon stood up, and extracted himself from Romulus and Pollux. "I...I know you..." he said, eyes, opening wider. It was like he was seeing them for the first time...like a blinder had been pulled away. How obvious it was that Romulus had his jawline and Janine's red hair. That Pollux had his blonde hair and Janine's nose. But there was something else bubbling out of his mind unexpectedly.

"Well, er, we did admit..." Romulus started to say.

"No...there's something else...1986." Egon cut him off, and his brow furrowed in deep thought. "When Norman Draverhaven and Herbert Loone tried to kill Peter...the Ghostbusters from the future--it was you!" He turned and looked around. "And Eric Stantz! And...hm...I still don't think I know a TJ Anderson..."

Pollux ribbed Romulus gently. "You haven't met her in this time stream yet. It won't be for another twenty two years." she explained.

"With the timeline in shreds and this being a null zone, the laws of temporal integrity must be breaking down some..." Romulus added. "It explains why you'd remember that so clearly."

His head finally more or less coming together, Egon studied the eight other people he was sharing the room with. "Fascinating...temporal bifurcation into two sets of semifictionalized counterparts..."

"He sure still sounds like Egon." Redheaded Ray beamed.

"We must hurry." Egon said, looking at his friends. "The timestream stablized when I was reintegrated--we need to reintegrate the eight of you into the four people you're supposed to be."

"If you say so, Egon!!!" the Janine in pink said brightly.

The Potts Janine grimaced again. "Do I really have to take that back?"

"Yes." Egon answered. "She's the part of Janine that never gave up like you did."

"I still don't know about this..." the Venkman in brown muttered.

"I trust Egon, Peter." the redheaded Ray replied. "Do you?"

"We just saw it happen, Peter." the Aykroyd Ray added, looking at the Murray Venkman. "It's not like we don't know if it'll work now."

Murray Venkman made a dismissive noise. "Just as long as the real me doesn't have the mullet..."

"He doesn't" Egon assured him.

"I guess I'll see you on the other side, Zeddemore..." Hudson Winston said to his counterpart.

"That's Zeddmore." the Winston in blue corrected. "Or is it?"

"Let's find out..." the Potts Janine said, grabbing her counterpart.

The light was, understandably, four times as bright this time. Yellow, orange, green, and purple. The eight shapes distorted and compacted...

_I'm Peter Venkman. I was born on September 21, 1950. In college, I met Egon Spengler, and it was by cribbing off of him that I graduated and got my degrees in Parapsychology and Psychology. In 1984, we formed Ghostbusters, and I met Dana Barrett. We dated for a while, then she dumped me because I couldn't commit to her. She married The Stiff and had a baby, Oscar. In late 1989, we got back together...Ghostbusters got back together...I ran for mayor in 1993, but quit on the first day...I had...for some reason I started to hate Egon, so I left, and moved to LA...Dana and I are married..._

_I'm Peter Venkman. I was born on October 25, 1957. My Dad was a con man, and was never home at Christmas, so I hated Christmas for years after that. My Mom was always alone. I met Ray and Egon in college, where I was a famous member of Tri Kuppa Bru. In the 1980's, we formed Ghostbusters, I met my pal Slimer, and I finally became famous--they even made a movie about me, though Bill Murray looks nothing like me. So when the Ghostbusters caught all the ghosts, and shut down, I went to Hollywood and became a bigshot agent...and have dated more than one hot starlet._

* * *

_I'm Raymond Francis Stantz...I was born on July 1, 1952. My Dad was a Doctor, my Mom was a housewife...I have an older brother, Carl, and a sister, Jean, but we haven't spoken since my parents died in a plane crash in 1982. I witnessed a mass underwater sponge migration--was that all it took to get me into the paranormal? I worked in the private sector before meeting Peter and Egon. In 1984, we formed Ghostbusters, and became famous for ten minutes--then the ungrateful yuppies shut us down. Five years later, we came back, and were going better than ever until Peter and Winston quit to run for Mayor. And then Egon and I hired Jack Lowell and his team..._

_I'm Ray Stantz...I was born on October 13th, 1959 in the Bronx, but moved to Morrisville when I was a kid. I read lots of comics books and pulp horror novels, which fueled my interest in the paranormal. There was a girl named Elaine Fuhrman there. After my parents died, my Aunt Lois looked out for me...I also had a long-lost Uncle Gaylord who ran a joke shop and an Uncle Andrew in Scotland, who had a castle. I met Peter and Egon in college, then in the 1980's we formed Ghostbusters and became really famous. By the early 1990's we caught all the ghosts and shut down, and I worked at Stanford until that lab accident then I became a used car salesman..._

* * *

_I'm Winston Zeddemore, born Dec 17, 1945...my Dad's a construction worker and my Mom, Evangelean...or was it Lucille? Why the hell can't I remember my own Mamma's name??? She gave him twelve kids. I joined the Army and was trained in Electronic Countermeasures, Strategic Air Command, Karate, and small arms. I was hired by the Ghostbusters in 1984, but wasn't there for very long before they were forced to shut down. I shaved off my mustache and did children's parties with Ray until the Ghostbusters got back together. In 1993, Peter ran for Mayor and I was his running mate--he won the election and quit on the first day...I've been Mayor of New York ever since, winning election in my own right in 1997..._

_I'm Winston Zeddmore, born May 2, 1954...my Dad's a construction worker, Edward Zeddmore. I went to boot camp then after a stint in the army did odd jobs like driving a cab and worked as a gas pump attendant. I was hired by the Ghostbuster in the 1980's. I found out I was a reincarnated Ibandi chieftain named Shima Buku, and a family heirloom was the key to the Collector's realm. I dated a girl for years...why can't I remember her name? When the Ghostbusters shut down after catching all the ghosts, I moved to Montana and became a commuter pilot...I live near my sister..._

* * *

_I'm Janine Melnitz...I was born October 28, 1952 in Brooklyn. I love reading...some people accused me of being too intellectual. I also play raquetball. In 1984, I was hired by the Ghostbusters to be their secretary...I fell in love with Egon Spengler pretty much at first sight, but he was too wrapped up in science...he never returned the feeling. When the Ghostbusters split up, we lost track of each other...five years later, when it came back, Egon wasn't any more receptive...so I started to date Louis Tully. We got married, but deep down I still..._

_I'm Janine Melnitz! I was born...well, it's none of your business, though I can't deny I graduated in 1977 because Egon saw my yearbook! I have a sister named Doris and a nephew named Victor! I was hired by the Ghostbusters in the 1980's, and fell in love with Egon Spengler pretty much at first sight! But he kept ignoring me, even after the Fairy Godmother made me more perfect! I flirted with other guys in hopes he'd notice me...guys like Paul Smart and Louis Tully! Egon told me he loved me once, when we found out the Fairy Godmother was an evil Makeoverus Lotsabucks...but then...I can't remember why we aren't together! The Ghostbusters downsized me out of a job after that, because they caught all the ghosts, and...what did I do after that?! All I remember is coming back to Egon just in time to help the Extreme Ghostbusters...and flirting with Gregor Samsa...and Egon and I dating on his birthday!_

* * *

The flourescing shapes, which started as eight, became four.

"Fascinating..." Egon muttered. "Did I glow red?"

"Uh...yeah..." Romulus answered.

"Fascinating..." Egon repeated. "The same colors as the Zodiac crisis..."

_I'm Peter Charles Venkman. I was born on October 25, 1954. My Dad, Charlie, was a con man, and was never home at Christmas, so I hated Christmas for years after that, and for leaving my Mom, Margaret, alone so much. In college, I met Egon, then Ray, and became a famous member of Tri Kuppa Bru. In 1983, we formed Ghostbusters, and I met Dana Barrett. I also met Slimer, but the less said about that the better. Dana and I dated for a while, then she dumped me because I couldn't commit to her. She married The Stiff and had a baby, Oscar. Meanwhile, I finally became famous--they even made a movie about me, though Bill Murray looks nothing like me--and threw myself into more than one empty affair. In 1986, we were forced to shut down...but in late 1988, Dana and I AND Ghostbusters got back together...she moved to LA to continue her musical career, but when Ghostbusters had to shut down again, because of the big fight I had with Egon, I went to Hollywood, finally married Dana, and became a bigshot agent. In addition to Oscar--whom I couldn't love more if he was my own flesh and blood--we have a daughter of our own, Jessica. I split my time between Hollywood and GBI..._

_I'm Raymond Francis Stantz...I was born on October 13, 1959 in the Bronx. My Dad, David, was a Doctor, and my mother, Carolyn, was a housewife who was born in Scotland. I have an older brother Carl and a sister Jean, but we haven't spoken since my parents died in a car crash in 1970. I was raised in Morrisville...my high school crush was Elaine Fuhrman...my Dad's sister, Aunt Lois, looked out for me. She had another brother, Uncle Gaylord, who ran a joke shop. Mom's brother was Uncle Andrew, who lived in Scotland and had a castle. I read lots of comics books and pulp horror novels, and witnessed a mass underwater sponge migration, which feuled my interest in the paranormal. I met Peter then Egon in college; we were together except for that time I worked in private industry for a year. In 1983, we formed Ghostbusters, and became famous. Three years later, we were shut down by ungrateful yuppies, but came back two years after that. In 1991, I met Elizabeth Hawthorne...and Ghostbusters was forced to shut down once again. I worked at Stanford for a while, until that lab accident then I became a used car salesman...I got married in 1995, and a year later our son Eric was born. I'm back with GBI now..._

_I'm Winston Zeddemore, born May 2, 1953. My Dad, Edward Zeddemore, is a construction worker, and my mom is Lucille. In 1971, I was drafted and sent to Vietnam...I was trained in Electronic Countermeasures, Strategic Air Command, Karate, and small arms. After that, I did odd jobs like driving a cab and worked as a gas pump attendant. In 1983, I was hired by the Ghostbusters, and I shaved off my mustache. I found out I was a reincarnated Ibandi chieftain named Shima Buku, and a family heirloom was the key to the Collector's realm. I met Kaila MacMillan, someone Janine knew from the Museum, and we dated for years. When the Ghostbusters had to shut down in 1986, I did children's parties with Ray until the Ghostbusters got back together. When the Ghostbusters shut down again, after that stuff with the Zodiac Lords, I married Kaila and moved to Montana near my sister. I became a commuter pilot before going back to GBI, and we have a daughter, Charlene..._

_I'm Janine Melnitz...I was born on October 28, 1958, and I'm the younger daughter of Fritz and Denise Melnitz. I have a sister, Doris, and a nephew, Victor Irwin. I graduated high school in 1977, but never had a steady job until I was hired by the Ghostbusters in 1983. When I met Egon Spengler, I fell in love with him pretty much at first sight. But he kept ignoring me...even after the Makeoverus Lotsabucks starting making me more "perfect"...though he exploded with jealousy when I dated Paul Smart. When the Ghostbusters broke up, I kept close to him...and then when they got back together in late 1988, he kept ignoring me to concentrate on Dr. Venkman and his problems. I got mad and had a fling with Louis Tully...but a year later Egon finally came clean, when we stopped the Lotsabucks! He admitted he loved me too. We were a couple. We were together. Then...an accident robbed me of years of memory. The Ghostbusters broke up. I rebounded with another fling with Louis that led to a disasterous marriage. I divorced Louis and came back to Egon just as he formed the Extreme Ghostbusters...after that stupid flirtation with Gregor Samsa, we got back together. A year ago, we were married at long last. And just this morning..._

Egon Spengler spared a look of concern for all of his friends, but he moved to catch the woman that appeared as the violet light faded...the woman wearing a flight suit the same blue as his own, but with orange trim..."Janine!"

She muttered for few seconds, then her eyes shot wide open. "YOU PIGF***ING SON OF A BITCH!!! NODUUUUS!!!"

"I'm here, Janine, I'm here..." Egon said, gripping her as tightly as he could.

Venkman pulled himself up. "That was a nightmare. I was a self-centered egomaniac AND I was nice to Slimer at the same time..." Romulus was helping steady him.

"Janine! Egon!" Winston said, getting up on his own. He staggered closer to them.

"I was watching the babies..." Janine clutched her husband for dear life. "Waiting for you and everyone else...when...that sicko Nodus appeared....

_"Your children have been chosen for a higher destiny, Janine Melnitz, one far greater than a fallen intellect like him and a harlot like you could have ever given them."_

"The asshole blasted me, and I saw the cribs start to float away, and....Adonai, my children, what did that f***ing sicko do to them?!"

"We still don't know." Egon tried to reassure her through his own overwhelming panic. "But I assure you we are going to find out."

Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore nodded as one in agreement.

* * *

**To Be Continued**

* * *

#3566-90206y  
080


	7. Chapter 7

**GEMINI RISING  
PART SEVEN**

By Fritz Baugh  
GBI Case File GBNY-1999-17/613

* * *

**Null Zone**

* * *

_Intruder Alert...unauthorized rift detected from Planes 8932 Beta, 8932 Gamma, Sidereal code 0613-7-C-F_

"How big is this place, anyway?" Winston asked, looking around, proton thrower primed.

"Literally as big as Nodus wants it to be." John answered. "It's kinda like the TARDIS from _Doctor Who_..."

"You guys still have _Doctor Who_ in the future?" Ray couldn't help but ask, even in the middle of the current crisis.

"Heck yeah. Just wait till you see David Tennant..." John smirked.

"My brother has a fascination for many things created in England..." Eden said enigmatically, then studied some readings on her GBX.

"In other words, to get back on point, there could literally be assloads of those Robo-Freaks..." Venkman rolled his eyes.

Three Robo-Busters appeared from behind the corner. Winston and Venkman levelled their guns...

Egon raised his hand, signalling his friends not the fire.

_Bio-Scan verification: Nodus, Albert Einstein; Nodus, Marie Curie_

"Of course..." Eden realized. "They think we're Nodus's 'children'. Since technically, they are divergent temporal duplicates of us..."

_Awaiting Orders_

"Escort us and our...prisoners to Mister Nodus." John stepped forward, barking the order imperiously. "This is a priority order!"

_Acknowledged_ The Robo-Busters' gun housings closed. _Follow us, Master Nodus._

"Y'know, when I was about seven I plotted to build a bunch of killer robots to take over the world..." John smirked, drawing a smack to his elbow from Eden.

* * *

They were led, after an interval they couldn't somehow measure, to a place that made all of them gasp. All five of them had looked into the Ecto Containment Unit more than once--Egon had, in fact, journeyed inside it years ago.

The resemblance to the shifting energies and swirling choas of the Null Zone's core was unmistakeable.

"Wow..." Ray breathed.

"I wonder..." Egon started to muse. "The concentration of PKE caused the interior of the Containment Unit to dimensionally invert...the 'Null Zone' could be a very similar phenomenon..."

Pollux looked at her hand. "Curious..." she said, as she noticed a vague static haze, orangish in color...and realized Romulus was showing it too.

"Astute observation, Professor Egon Spengler..." the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "It's a sign of your brilliance, actually, creating a Null Zone in your basement before anyone even knew what one was..."

Five proton guns were at the ready. "YOU PIGF***ING SON OF A BITCH!!!" Janine shouted. "I want my children!!!" It's only the fact that there was nothing to shoot at that had kept her from doing so already.

"Your pathetically limited mind has no clue how important your offspring are." Nodus's voice sneered.

Around them, the world then exploded in red agony. One set of shadowy memories from the split universes became newly-clear: the painful attacks on them by Albert and Marie Nodus. It was like living both of those attacks again, but cranked up to eleven...

For all but one.

Egon looked around, confused. His wife, his friends, had been thrown back and utterly agonized by the attack. Romulus and Pollux--his own children, from a future that was by no means certain at this moment--were closer; dazed, knocked for a loop, but not nearly as viciously as the others.

From the red haze, Josiah Nodus swirled into being.

Egon aimed his thrower.

Nodus gestured with his right arm. A very familiar click and whine was emitted. "I believe the phrase is 'total protonic reversal'...do you wish to take that risk?"

Egon moved the nozzle of the thrower away from Nodus, but did not holster it. "When my wife gets her hands on you, she will kill you. And I won't stop her."

Nodus shook his head. "How far you've fallen...strutting and threatening like any wild animal whose young have been taken from them."

"You _have_..." Egon snarled. "It's not just a powerful instinct--it's an extremely logical one..."

"What do _you_ know of logic anymore?!" Nodus shouted back. "You sold out any claim to that when you were distracted from your mission by base emotion. When you decided that wallowing in your misery was more important to you than embracing your potential. When you allowed the sharpness of your mind to be dulled by your heart."

Egon glared at his accuser. "I know my feelings are far more logical than tearing the universe into two bastardized parodies."

Nodus looked about him. "One for each Twin, of course. But that was only the beginning..."

"Of what?"

Nodus didn't answer him. "More of Delphia and Ulforce's meddling..." he sneered, looking at John and Eden. "They're like you--an utter waste of their true potential."

"As opposed to those cold hearted monsters wearing their faces?" Egon replied. "Where are my children, Nodus?"

"Better off." Nodus answered. "My Nodus Twins are power incarnate. Far more than these damaged, blunted specimens. But I suppose that is to be expected--they were raised around a superstitious barbarian, a libertine conniver, and an emotionally unbalanced idiot, by their overwrought mother and their debased father."

"Edie..." John groaned, reaching for his sister.

"Don't call me Edie..." Eden replied.

"Is it just me or does this seem vaguely familiar?"

"Like when I was in Nodus...Albert Nodus's office. His attack scattered most of us...Mother and Father less...and I was all but unaffected."

"Except this time Mom got thrown too..." John mused. "And we got the lesser damage...and Pop..."

"Unngh..." Ray moaned, wishing the ringing in his ears would fade faster. "That's either the second or third time today...and it wasn't any more fun. Winston, you all right?"

"No." Winston groaned, even though he knew how this gag was going to go.

"Peter?" Ray asked.

"I'm fine." Venkman replied, clearly in pain.

Egon spared a quick look at his wife and friends. They were all right, apparently. "You seem to think you know an awful lot about us..." He and Nodus were circling each other...like two lions waiting for the right moment to strike.

"I know you better than you would ever think possible. I know you--all of you--because I've seen your lives unfold before." Nodus answered "I come from a time in the future...your histories are as familiar to me as the Periodic Table. Or they should be."

Venkman helped Janine back to her feet. "You okay?"

"I will be as soon as I kill that motherf***er..." She saw Egon was all right...and the future versions of her Twins...but the Robo Busters were starting to surround them, to keep them from interfering.

Nodus exhaled, a note that sounded like...weariness coming into his voice. "And yet...you have become nothing like the Peter Venkman, Raymond Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, Egon Spengler, and Janine Melnitz I knew. Everything has not happened as it did in the timeline I lived."

"All because of one choice that was made, a choice that made _everything_ different." Nodus shook his head. "Raymond Stantz married and had a son. Peter Venkman is still alive."

"What does this have to do with my children?" Egon asked.

"Everything." Nodus replied.

Winston's brow furrowed.

"I'm dead?" Venkman sputtered. "This f***ing sucks..."

Ray smacked him.

"Ow!"

"If you felt that you're not dead, Peter."

The Robo Busters circled the Ghostbusters.

"Priority Alpha Password Invocation; Verify Voiceprint Josiah Nodus."

_"Voiceprint Verified. Priority Alpha Password Mode Activated"_

"The Robo Busters will now listen to me and me alone until I give them the order not to." Nodus glanced at John and Eden. "To prevent any more confusion on their part until this matter is resolved."

"You got us by the balls, fine." Venkman nodded angrily. "Just what the f*** do you want?! If you were Pecker or Draverhaven or Blaque I might understand why you were doing this...but Egon and Janine or any of the rest of us never did anything to you..."

"It's all about the future. And the past, Peter Venkman. A grand scheme that was set in motion while our ancestors were still less than chattering monkeys. A mystery--a prophesy that wouldn't come true, a question that could not be answered, a destiny that was denied the world. A question...that has led to the most unexpected of answers. All springing from another choice. From a different destiny denied."

"Let me tell you...let me show you something." Nodus gestured, and the space around them went dark. "You want to see the truth? Here is the day the choice was made...the day everything I had known about the destiny of the Ghostbusters became wrong. June 8, 1993."

Janine heard Egon inhale.

"I see the date is of significance to you?" Nodus smirked.

"It was the tenth anniversary of the day Ghostbusters fully opened for business." Ray noted. "Ten years after I bought the ECTO-1..."

"Ten years after Dana became our very first client." Venkman added.

"Yes...but what other significance did this day hold?" Nodus gestured, and shapes appeared in the ether...

* * *

**Nodus Imagonem**

* * *

Egon Spengler jiggled the mouse to call up the display on his computer. After checking the weather, he noticed an alert...

_Alert: Flag for Public Records_

Egon grimaced. He'd set his computer to keep track of the public records databases--he just found himself unable to believe his friends would continue to notify him as to weddings, and births...but he unavoidably just had to _know_

**Specify target hit?**

_Melnitz, Janine_

His blood froze cold. What if something had happened to her? _Again?_

No. She'd endured enough bad luck for two life times. With him out of her life certainly this must be good news...

He inhaled. And clicked the link

* * *

Slimer picked through the remains of the breakfast Egon had dumped on the bed. It wasn't Slimer's bed, really--it was the bed Peter Venkman had occupied off and on for eight years.

He knew he should be hungrier...he had always been hungry, for as long as he could remember...but lately...and it wasn't because Peter went away...it happened before then...

He was startled out of his lethargy by a loud crashing.

"YOU BITCH!!!" he heard Egon's voice shout, in an anger that unnerved him. Egon was never that angry. He was never angry, period.

There was a feral shout, and more crashing sounds. Glass breaking, electronic devices being smashed...Slimer hid under the bed, and whimpered mournfully.

* * *

Egon surveyed the wreckage that had once been his laboratory, his breaths deep and labored. The desk chair he'd sat in had been thrown against one of the book cases full of assorted electronic gear and test tubes. Several more items he'd grabbed and hurled into the wall.

_State of New Jersey Marriage License Filed June 6, 1993_

_Tully, Louis B._

_Melnitz, Janine_

* * *

"Oh Adonai..." Janine whispered. That was all she could say.

John and Eden looked at each other, feeling distinctly uncomfortable at the thought of their mother being married to the man they spent their childhoods calling "Doo Doo Head".

"Nothing to say, Egon Spengler?" Nodus queried.

"Rifling through those old memories is going to accomplish what?" Egon replied.

"Context." Nodus answered. "After that, you were travelling with Kirillian, and were brought into a dimensional null zone, where you passed three tests."

Egon's blood ran cold. A thought or two started to come together. "Sarim-Lar? Is that what this is all about?" His eyes narrowed. "You work for him, testing me again? Or are you Lar itself, adopting human form?"

"Perceptive guesses, Egon Spengler...but wrong." Nodus answered. "But he _was_ known to me...I was once his apprentice, just as you would've been...had you followed the course I had forseen for you."

"Who the f*** is Sarim-Lar?" Venkman grumbled.

"Observe, and you shall see..." Nodus replied. "Let our drama continue..."

* * *

**Nodus Imagonem**

* * *

Egon didn't know for how long he fell, but when he hit the floor, it wasn't hard enough to kill or even seriously injure him, but hard enough he was dazed for a few seconds.

_Excellent, Egon Spengler...you passed the tests. As I knew you would, of course...they were, after all, only a formality..._

"You said the testing was over..." he finally said, pulling himself off the floor. The room was filled with darkness, but he could hear something...something moving...

_I know of your history, Egon Spengler...I didn't think you would take this seriously if I didn't indulge in some theatrics...allow me to introduce myself..._

There was a blaze of violet light, and from that light something that would have no doubt horrified a lesser man appeared. It looked like a giant anthropomorphic beetle, with a maroon carapace, standing some seven feet high. Its head, though, was bloated, with a huge, pulsating brain apparently having broken through its helmet-like covering. Four of its limbs resembled arms, but the last two were thicker, and more resembled legs...and were covered in a rather incongrous garment that looked, for all the world, like khaki cargo pants.

At the center of its "chest" was a glyph that looked carved in...two sets of circles joined together, reminding Egon of nothing so much as some crude representation of a hydrogen atom.

"You may call me...Sarim-Lar. I am the Lord of the Izumo, the Voice of Knowledge, and Warrior of the Thunders. I have watched you for many years...and I have been curious." As the creature spoke, it adjusted the other incongruous feature of its appearance--the thick, blocky (almost Buddy Holly looking) eyeglasses under it's protruding brain.

"Oh?"

"I have had dealings with the Council of Eight before...and with Spelger-Noge, he who is known to you as the Master of Shadow. When word reached me that he had been defeated and bound by one of the monkey-creatures on this lowly planet, I understandably grew curious..."

"I have watched you since then, through eight turnings of your world about it's star. And you have proven more than a worthy apprentice..."

Egon took a few seconds to process this. "Apprentice?"

"I am the Voice of Knowledge...and it is my calling to speak that Knowledge to the worthy...and you are worthy. With the tools of your science, you have rent the Gauntlet seperating the dimensions, and have reshaped the way your world views itself. It is your intellect that has proven key to protecting your world from the eldrich horrors that beset it as the new Age begins...from the Shapeless Destructor, to even the primal Lords of the Xodiac itself."

"I offer you the key to transcendance...to reshape the world by the force of your will, to know all that you wish to know--and far more. The answers to questions you haven't even yet known to ask..."

Egon's head was spinning...he could somehow sense it...the _truth_ in Sarim-Lar's words. Ultimate knowledge? To know the answers to questions he hadn't even known to ask yet?

It would be everything he'd spent his life thirsting for.

But still...

"It has been my experience that such things seldom come without...a price." he finally replied.

"And that is why I have waited, Egon Spengler. I could see your bright potential....but that transcendant intellect of yours is crippled and stifled by the base emotions that still grip your mortal heart. The savage in you, and its affections for the other mud creatures that crawl on this world. The animal in you gripped by its primal urge to mate."

Egon inhaled deeply.

"You have long known, deep down, that these feelings...these animal passions, were what restrained you. You have often wished to unchain yourself from them....forget the tiresome bonds to the chattering creatures who shared your domicile, but not your world. Forget the scarlet-tressed succubus that toyed with your yearnings, but quickly brushed you aside for a specimen far your inferior."

The beetle creature moved close.

Egon felt the burning...the others? The ones who distracted him for so long...the ones imprisoned by their ignorances, their petty preconceptions...imprisoned by their lusts and foolishness...

The one who had walked out of his life...and had just married Louis Tully.

Accept my offer, Egon Spengler. I will purge you of the fetters of emotion...that vast mind of yours will be free at last, and with it....you will reshape reality itself...I offer you the Universe. And all that is required, is the leave your World behind...

The creature extended a hand. A ball of violet light crackled there, the power that would begin Egon Spenglers transformation. _Ultimate knowledge._

Ultimate understanding

To have the pain go away

The pain.

Peter

Raymond

Winston

Janine

Egon could see it. The light of Knowledge, the light of Reason, the light he had been chasing since he was able to even formulate thought.

_To be free of the humanity...to be nothing but Knowledge...to live nothing but Reason..._

His hand closed on the glowing orb...

"I accept."

_Damn you to hell, Bitch..._

When his hand grasped the orb, the world filled with sparkling electric fire. Every cell of his body writhed in pain. But his mind...

His mind sang.

He could see it. The dance of atoms. The flow of energies. He saw how they fit together. In moments, he found the Grand Unification Theory that other men had spent decades searching for in vain.

It. All. Makes. Sense. Now.

But then he felt it. An anguished cry within his soul. A red fire that fought the effort to extinguish it. The words of Phineus Eventide came unbidden. _Red is your Passion, your love of knowledge, your love of your brothers in arms, and your love for the one your heart has chosen as its own. Unlock that Passion, and unlock your true destiny..._

_NO!!!_ his mind forcefully shouted.

_Passion is a curse. It is a weakness. Love is a lie to justify the basest urges of the animal mind. Friendship is a construction of mutual weakness to ensure survival. Eventide was a fool. Venkman, Stantz, Mother. They're all fools. All weak, pathetic fools._

Knowledge is strength. Knowledge is power. Logic, Reason, these are the keys to Knowledge. Passion is a denial of knowledge. Passion only shackles the mind to animal urges. Passion is useless to a true Scientist.

I deny this foolishness.

__

I DENY LOVE!!!

And with one last whimper, the red fire went out...

He picked himself off the floor, the man who had once been Egon Spengler. He opened his eyes, and stared at Sarim-Lar. While the gaze was no less intense than before, it was now colder than ice.

Were his features capable of showing it, the Voice of Knowledge would look pleased. "Now, my apprentice...time for you to begin to really_ learn." _

* * *

Egon felt his throat dry up. The weird corrupted version of what he went through brought back more than one memory...and more than one question.

"You really..." Janine asked, unable to avoid the question. "You really thought of all of us that way?"

Egon couldn't lie to her. "At that moment...right after I'd found out about you marrying Louis, and nobody had made any apparent move to stop it...I did." He looked at her.

_If I'd known I'd have f***ing stopped it..._ Venkman mused to himself, a flash of the old bitterness returning.

Egon looked at all of them. "But it didn't happen that way. I refused Sarim-Lar...and it was because of you...because of all of you...that I refused."

"But in the history I knew, Egon Spengler...you _did_ accept." Nodus interjected. "You became the Lord of the Izumo's apprentice. He even called you a new name...to remove you from your previous life..." Nodus strode a few steps as he spoke. "You learned a great many things. One of them was the mystery that brought me here...a mystery I had learned from him just as you had..."

"Now we're getting somewhere..." Winston said. There was an idea forming in his mind, now...an idea that was, at the one hand, made almost every piece of information he had fall neatly into place. But on the other hand, it was so absurd...unthinkable...

Horrifying.

* * *

**Nodus Imagonem**

* * *

_In the ancient myths of Atlantis, they told of a great War of the Gods, long before man arose...Vulguus the Traveler, and the Firey One, Hob-Annagarik, covetted the land known as Earth. The birthworld of your physical form, Knot._

The Great Beasts, enormous lizards that made the ground shake like thunder, were the prize. Both sought them for a grand army...but in their violence and zeal, they destroyed that which they sought to posess.

The dinosaurs? Sixty five million years ago, they were wiped out by a grand disaster. Current concensus was that a giant asteroid struck the Earth in the Yucatan, causing a "nuclear winter."

_In the aftermath, Vulguus was shorn of his very form..._

Vulguus Zildrohar. Gozer the Gozarian. I know of him. And of Hob-Annagarik.

_Yes...of that I am aware. Which is why I tell you of this...for there is a conundrum in this story, a mystery I have yet to unravel..._

A mystery?

_After the death of the dinosaurs, and the censure of Vulguus, it is written that Xodiac, the Keeper of the Twelve Keys of Magic, rent his form into ether, and spread his essence throughout the very fabric of the Universe._

Fascinating. This Atlantean lore is something new to me. Much has been written about Atlantis's fate, but only fragments in legend.

_The Atlanteans maintained that it was only after Xodiac destroyed himself, that sentience was brought to mortal life._

The Greek legend of Prometheus. He brought fire to mortal men, and was condemned by the Gods for it.

_It can be assumed, that the Gods were, indeed, not happy._

They never are when mortals aquire knowledge. The Greek gods punished Prometheus. The Abrahamic God forbid his creation to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Gods fear what would happen if the mortals became wise to their ways.

_You seem disdainful..._

Thus far, I have never met a God too far removed from the thirst for destruction. Even the most 'benevolent' glory in their own power and superiority to the humans I used to protect.

But you spoke of a mystery...

_Yes...it is said, then, that though Xodiac was no longer, in his essence...ingrained in the pattern of mortal life itself, retained the power of his Twelve Keys. The essence of his power, and his universal understanding. The Atlanteans became convinced of the power of Xodiac, influenced by the very shape of the skies around them.___

They ingrained the Twelve Principles in their lore. They spoke of the seven Grand Lights, which reflected his power...Helios, Selene, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus, and Chronus. And the subtle power of the Other Lights--Oranos, Triton, and Hades...

The planets? At least as defined by ancient astrology...the Sun is a class G2 yellow star, while the moon is a satellite... Then the Twelve Keys? The signs of the Zodiac.

_Yes. Xodiac. Zodiac. The Twelve Keys survived in Atlantean science...but when the continent sank beneath the waves only the rudiments of that knowledge survived. The Sumerians and later the Greeks adapted it to their own cosmology...but only the echoes of the grand Atlantean truth.___

But ingrained in sentient life are these twelve principles...the four Elements...the Wind, the domain of the Mind. The Water, the domain of Emotion. The Earth, the domain of Matter. And the Fire, the domain of Energy. And each, then, in three states...the Primordial state, raw and unformed....the Dynamic state, creating or destroying...and the Steady state, formed into pattern and resolute. Combined, the domains and the states produce the twelve principles.

The signs of the Zodiac. Aries: Cardinal Fire...

_The Dynamic Fire in the Atlantean system..._

Scorpio. The Fixed Water sign.

_The Steady Waters_

Gemini. The Mutable Air sign.

_Gemini of the Primordial Wind....appropriate that you mention it..._

Oh?

_I am getting ahead of myself...but here is the beginning of the conundrum: Not long after Atlantis formed, twelve of their people suddenly fell ill. When they awoke, they invoked the names of the Twelve Principles. Twelve people, each invoking one Principle. They gathered, and tried to destroy Atlantis...but were opposed by a woman called the Forever Swimmer, who had brought together several gifted magi. They convinced the Twelve Avatars that Atlantis was worthy of survival...and the Twelve abandoned their bodies, leaving Atlantis in peace--but only until the turning of a new Age. In two millenia, they would return..._

I sense comprehension?

Two years before I came here...something very much like you describe occured at Stonehenge. Twelve avatars--including some people known to my past self--were taken. We stopped them, but both Eventide and that other mage, Fallagar, called them the Zodiac Lords...or should that be Xodiac Lords?

_Then you heard the prophesy of the Five Who Are One...___

At the Cusp of Oranos, the Stars Will Seek Judgement  
The Twelve stand Marked by their Destinies  
The Five Who Are One Will Stand United Against Them  
And then, When the Enigma Is Revealed  
They Will Stand United with the Restless Warrior  
And Secure the Destiny of Hermes,  
Thus the Ascension of the Children of the Twelve..."

They were talking about....the Ghostbusters. The four of them. And the woman who served them. It sounded important--is it? And if so, what does it mean?

_That, my dear Knot, is the conundrum..._

We fulfilled our destiny when it came to halting the Xodiac Lords. So there is more?

_If the words are to be believed, yes...I believe that "Destiny of Hermes" refers to the missing Childe of Xodiac. That is something else you may not have heard about, so let me tell you..._

The Xodiac Lords are the twelve Principles embodied as spirits. Powerful spirits. But there is another manifestation of the Xodiac principles--the Children of Xodiac. The Children are born of human blood, but in each of them, one of the principles takes root. The Children are still human...but with a touch of the spirits in them.

__

They live for millenia--indeed, the oldest of them, the Forever Swimmer, the one born under the sign of the Primordial Waters--is one of the first true humans ever born on that world. The Lord of the Primordial Fire is almost as old. The Lady of the Dynamic Earth and the Lord of the Steady Wind are known to you; she was born in ancient, dead Atlantis, while he was a child of Medieval Germany. Indeed, it has been suggested that, while they are killable, they will never die of old age or "natural" cause.

Immortality?

_Perhaps. But here is the missing piece: only eleven have been born into the world. The Twelfth--the one to be born with the power of the Primordial Wind--has not manifested as yet. Gemini, ruled by the power of Mercury--Hermes. Only then will the circle will be complete. Only then will the Children of Xodiac begin their true quest for Ascension._

Ascension? And what does that entail?

_Not even they know. They each have their own pet ideas, I've gathered--some think this means they will become unified, and lead Earth to a new, higher state of being. Some think it will mean the Twelve must war on each other, leaving only One..._

Hm. Sounds like a movie Ray forced me to watch once...

_One, the Lady of the Steady Waters, works to bring about the destruction of the world. She assumes that once the circle is complete, it will trigger some manner of apocalypse--and that is not impossible that she is correct._

Then somehow...the Five of us were to be instrumental in the creation of Lord Gemini. The daemonseed, Shannon Phillips, was posessed by the Gemini force.

_Yes...but Shannon Phillips is not Lord Gemini. And we know it will be a male child, because the five signs that are classified as male--Aries, Leo, Libra, Saggitarius, and Aquarius--were embodied in male Children, while the six female signs--Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces--produced female Children._

Is that why I was chosen? Because of my own link to his mystery?

_No. You were chosen because you are the finest mind your world has seen in at least a century. But as one indeed linked to this mystery...I would think it would make discovering the truth all the more important to you._

Indeed, Master Lar...I will uncover the truth. I will find Lord Gemini.

* * *

"Lord...Gemini?" Johnathan Christopher Spengler inhaled. His sister grabbed his hand, and held it tight.

"Yes..." Nodus said. "The great conundrum that eluded Sarim-Lar. If the Ghostbusters defeated the Xodiac Lords, then where is their role in the creation of Lord Gemini? It is a question that weighed heavily on the man now known as Knot..." He turned away once more. "He searched...and found nothing. He began to doubt his master's 'wisdom'...and on a rather peculiar day, he made a particularlly peculiar decision." He looked back at them. "June 13, 1999."

"Today..." Eden pointed out.

"Yes. It seems today is fated to be one of destiny for Egon Spengler no matter which world he lives in..."

* * *

**Nodus Imagonem**

* * *

Sarim-Lar staggered...his massive form reeling, like he'd been punched in the gut by a creature even more massive than he was.

"It's...it's gone wrong!!!"

He didn't know how. He didn't know why. But something was terribly wrong.

"Knot!!!"

In a burst of light, his apprentice appeared. "You called, Master Lar?"

"I felt an undulation in the time stream...something has gone wrong. This was the day the stellar alignments pointed to--a day somehow linked to the Ascension and Lord Gemini. But it's not going to happen..."

"The Ascension will fail?"

"Yes..." Sarim-Lar shook his large head. "I can sense the flow of probabilies going awry...whatever was supposed to happen today, did not happen. And it never will."

"Unfortunate." Knot replied. "It means you have failed."

Sarim-Lar barely had time to register Knot's words before being staggered back by a blast of pure force.

"Failure means you are no longer the Lord of Knowledge, Sarim-Lar." The massive creature looked up to see his apprentice brandishing a weapon, clearly based on the technology Knot had used in his mortal days. "You are a waste of the title. Perhaps it is time for another--one who will succeed where you failed!!!" He blasted the Lord of the Izumo again.

Sarim-Lar had been blindsided. So wrapped up in unravelling the mystery he never forsaw this. "Knot...Spengler...how could you?!"

"Don't. Use. That name." Knot seethed. "This is my puzzle to solve now, and solve it I shall. Without your inept help."

Sarim-Lar knew he was done for. Knot had defeated greater beings than him while a mere human...now, with his knowledge and the power it brought him...

His last thought, as he was blasted into oblivion...was of the life--and the mate--he had left behind to pursue his own enlightenment. How foolish that suddenly seemed...

* * *

It hit Egon like ice water. He felt Janine's fingernails dig into his arm. _She's realized it too..._

Winston looked at him. Egon could see it in the older man's eyes--_He'd probably guessed it first..._

Nodus looked at them. "But even then, he could not find out the answer. The mystery remained unsolved. Finally, he made a decision--if he could not find the answers in his present, he would find them in the past. But first...one last moment of indulgence. One last remembrance of the man he'd once been..." Nodus snapped his fingers. "June 8, 2003..."

* * *

**Nodus Imagonem**

* * *

It had been years since he had set foot on this world. Ten, to be exact.

But unbenownst to Sarim-Lar...he had scried upon it from time to time.

He had seen, when his mortal identity had been declared "dead", Raymond Stantz quitting his job at Stanford, returning to New York and taking posession of Ghostbusters Central. Stantz had even taken over Egon Spengler's duties at New York City Community College.

He had seen the woman...thrown into depression at just the moment she had finally liberated herself from him. Two years of drunkeness and depression...but since then happiness, of a sort, with the cockroach Tully.

He'd watched as the ebb of quintessence ended, when Ray and four students were forced to reactivate the banner of Ghostbusters due to the awakening of Achira.

And he'd watched as..._I shouldn't be doing this...this is far too much of a throwback to everything I left behind..._

Knot stared for a moment at the gravestone.

**Peter Charles Venkman, PhD  
October 25, 1954  
November 28, 1997**

_Idiot. You kept trying to pull me down to your own base level...become more "human"...but look where that got you. Look where ignoring that has gotten me. I am far more powerful, far more knowledgeable, than I ever would've been crawling in the gutters of "humanity" like you wanted me too..._

He was about to turn and leave when he heard a voice. "...so glad all of you could make it today..." a forlorn female voice said.

"There was no way we were gonna miss this, Dana." a voice that was still tenor, but somewhat scratched from age and tobacco, replied.

"We owe it to you--and to him." a firmer, deeper voice added.

And he heard the voice he dreaded most of all, making no noise except a gasp. _She's seen me..._

He pulled into the power within him, and his face reshaped itself. Younger, with darker hair, a goatee and mustache appearing. Close enough that, perhaps, they could be forgiven for mistaking him, at first glance, for a man they believed dead--but quite clearly not that man.

He turned to face them. The redheaded woman stopped, the light of hope fading back out of her eyes. "Adonai...I'm sorry...for a moment...I thought..."

"Thought what?" he asked. "Am I intruding?"

Dana stepped forward, a sullen fifteen year old boy and ten year old girl close to her. "Not at all...it's just from the back, you looked like someone we used to know. Er, did you know my husband?"

"I attended college with Doctor Venkman and Doctor Spengler." he replied simply, turning back away. Fighting off disgust at the sight...particullarly of the dweeby little man and the droopy, redhaired four year old girl with him.

"Huh..." Ray said. "I don't remember you..."

"You wouldn't."

Winston looked about ready to punch the rude man, but thought better of it. His wife and his ten year-old daughter were nearby.

_Children. Family. Pfagh. Ignorant breeders._ Knot thought to himself.

"It was twenty years ago today it all started..." Ray said sadly. "And ten years ago today we lost Egon..."

"And over five since Peter died in that car crash..." Dana shook her head, the tears starting to form.

"We've got a new team of Ghostbusters, but it just isn't the same." Ray continued. "Egon and Peter should be here, not..."

He'd had enough. "I am going to be ill...all of you wallowing in your pathetic lusts and emotions, only concerned with your own pains. Where were you when he was in pain? You all turned your backs on him. You especially." He pointed at Janine.

She took a step back, shocked. "How would you..."

"You found solace with this...wretch."

Louis gulped, then spoke up. "Now wait a..."

"And what did any of you do?" Knot gestured, sneering at the rest of those assembled. "He made a decision that had to be made, and all of you turned on him. You backed away. When she stabbed him in the back, made a lie of all of her pathetic declarations of love, none of you spoke up on his behalf!"

"Now just a darn minute..." Winston snarled, fists clenched. Janine looked ready to either cry or murder the man--possibly both.

"But it's just as well." Knot smirked. "The man you knew as Egon Spengler has evolved into a higher being--one he never would've become without your betrayal. It untied his fetter to this pathetic mudball. Mourn him not--because he certainly doesn't miss any of you!!!"

Winston lunged...wife and daughter present be damned, he wasn't going to let this man insult his dead friend's memories any longer.

But he never made contact. He bounced off a forcefield.

Knot gestured with his left arm, and a glowing doorway appeared. He stepped through it, leaving his old life behind forever...

...But not before one last look at her. And he realized, despite his best efforts...she _knew_ who he once was.

* * *

The core was, to invoke a cliche, so quiet a pin drop could've been heard.

The face of "other" Egon had warped and distorted into a face they all recognized.

The face of Josiah Nodus.

"And thus...he was ready for the last step..." Nodus said.

_

* * *

_#3593/#31119/#3450-112306r trk  
083_

* * *

_


	8. Chapter 8

**GEMINI RISING  
PART EIGHT**

By Fritz Baugh  
GBI Case File GBNY-1999-17/613

* * *

The core was, to invoke a cliche, so quiet a pin drop could've been heard.

The face of "other" Egon had warped and distorted into a face they all recognized.

The face of Josiah Nodus.

"And thus...he was ready for the last step..." Nodus said.

* * *

**Nodus Imagonem**

* * *

_It is almost time._

_I would allow myself a moment of satisfaction, but that would be a human response. A human feeling. And I have divorced myself from the burdens of human feeling long ago._

_I am a creature of logic. Reason is my forte. The messy thrall of sentimentality will not hinder my plans._

_I stride around my laboratory. Maybe I will allow just the faintest ember of satisfaction after all..._

_My pride in this place would be justified, after all. It is a pocket continuum, filled with all of the paraphernalia I will need to carry out my objectives._

_It hadn't been easy._

_I literally willed this place into being; even in my feeling days, I could grasp the concept in a way no other human alive could, save perhaps one, and with the full force of my transcendance I learned what I needed to warp this reality to my whim. I have created the perfect laboratory and staging base._

_But I needed more power to accomplish my perfection._

_I pull on the mask, black with a red visor. Interlaced into it are various sensors and detectors, allowing me to observe several different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum all at once. It will also protect me from the intrusion of...unwanted psychic senses. Spengler's equipment I've already taken into account...it was, after all, my own._

_The bodysuit is also shielded. It resembles cloth, but carries the protection of an intermeshed material of my own invention, more powerful than kevlar, and expressly designed to disperse the power of an alpha particle ion stream..._

_The vest and coat are of a look I would describe as "techno-Edwardian", but an anachronistic look is one I have favored since my human days. It is, again, armored against all attacks I could conceive being thrown against me._

_And then the gauntlets. Packed into them is a significant amount of firepower, more than sufficient for the task at hand: I could even bust ghosts with it, ironically enough._

_I pull the garb into place. After a series of checks, I determine that all is operating nominally._

_"Plot dimensional jump to plane 8932 Alpha, Sidereal code 0701-7-C-6"_

_**confirmed. access point?**_

_"Primary access point. Grossjuck Plaza." Maybe there's a touch of irony in me still...Paul Smart's crumbled empire will serve my needs perfectly. And with one year remaining until the Zodiac Lords appear, I will have plenty of time to get my pieces in place_

_**confirmed. dimensional shunt online. awaiting final order.**_

_"Execute"_

_The shimmering gate appears. On the other side, an empty, closed office can be seen. It will be so easy, and so perfect, to make use of Paul Smart's crumbled domain to mask my true intentions._

_I spare one last thought to the ones I left behind. My friends and colleagues. The woman who brought me such ecstacy and such heartbreak. They would never have approved of this action...but they lost any say into my life when they stabbed me in the back. I sneer a last curse at all of them, and angrily push them back out of my mind---wallowing in emotion will serve no use when my plan is so close to bearing fruit._

_I step into the gate. The destiny of the universe begins today._

_So swears..._

_Hm...what am I now?_

_Yes..._

_So swears Nodus..._

* * *

"And so he went back into time...to 1990. Made a fortune in the stock market--he knew, after all, which way the stocks would go, because to him it was all recorded history. And he watched...and he waited...he watched the Ghostbusters from afar, and everything unfolded exactly as he'd seen the first time. Egon Spengler became Knot. Knot destroyed Sarim-Lar. Knot went back in time to try to find out what went wrong with the Ascension."

"I don't..." Ray rasped, his throat barely wanting to make the effort of speech. "I don't believe this..."

"Do you understand what it was like? Seeing it all happen over and over again? Failing?! Over and over again?!" Nodus pulled himself upright. "I observed the sequence of events unchanged ten times. I began to wonder if I'd trapped myself in some manner of causal loop. I've lived for over one hundred fifty years..."

The false face of Nodus faded away. The hair was white, but the goatee was still there. The face was lined, but still recognizable--to a one, they realized it drove home his resemblance to Egon's uncle, Cyrus Spengler. But it was unquestionably also the same face as the younger, cleanshaven Egon Spengler standing not ten feet away from him...save for the eyes.

His cold, dangerous blue eyes.

"And finally, I realized my error. I am a scientist. I must investigate. On my last unsuccessful venture, I intervened. I arranged for the Ghostbusters to go to Romania and meet Lord Saggitarius. I obtained a sample of the Gemini Force from the Avatar." Nodus shook his head. "And still the Ascension failed. Until I came back one last time. Until..."

He glared at Egon. "You chose differently. You turned Sarim-Lar down. You changed everything. You returned to your mundane life...Raymond Stantz stayed in California, and married. You formed the Extreme Ghostbusters to battle Achira..." He looked at Janine. "You returned to him." He looked at Venkman. "And instead of dying in a Thanksgiving auto accident, on November 28, 1997, you were in New York City." He spared looks at Ray and Winston. "And all five of you returned to Ghostbusters International. The Five Who Are One became One once again." He finally looked back at Egon and Janine. "And you two, even more than that."

"Ockham's Razor..." Winston shook his head. "I remember how Egon was confused back in '91 when you 'avoided' his PKE meter by generating an 'interference pattern' with his own essence. It wasn't a trick, though. You are Egon, but not our Egon. An older, bitter Egon Spengler.

"You've become intimately familiar with alternate universes of late, Zeddemore..." Nodus answered. "This is not much different."

"And not just any dimension...this is listed in the Chronomantic Archives of the Council of Eight as Timeline 8932. But what they never grasped, neither the Council or Sarim-Lar, was it's true importance: 8932 is actually the primal continuity, the timeline from which all others branched off in the past. They didn't realize that--why else give it a nondescript identification? But I discovered this...8932 is the source code of reality. By affecting it...I could affect the structure of the entire multiverse."

"Why?" Ray asked.

"Why else?" Nodus replied. "The same purpose to which I dedicated my life from the day the Boogeyman started appearing from my closet: perfect safety of the human race. A universe no longer brimming with the supernatural, no longer choked with demonic entities and self-declared gods. Rational, orderly, a universe free of want, and misery, and crime. A universe that is perfect!"

Janine felt a chill at the word "perfect". She knew that impulse all too well. I can't move...I literally can't move....this is just too much...oh, Egon, if this is doing this to me what is this doing to you?!

"But I needed the power of the Children of Zodiac--a unique ability to process temporal energy was integral to my plans. It's a power even I cannot give myself yet. Thus, I was compelled to solve Sarim-Lar's last riddle. Where is Lord Gemini?" Nodus turned back to them. "And then I found him. I found him in the one place I never would have expected--I had ruled out the children of my old comrades. Not Oscar Wallance, not Charlene Zeddemore, not Jessica Venkman--they were born exactly as they were, brought into this world before it was changed. Not Eric Stantz, powerful as he would become, even though he was born later than in your world. And certainly not Lana Tully."

"But you, Egon Spengler, made a different choice than I did. And from that choice, children I did not forsee--because they did not exist in the world I came from. Children, born in the Ninth Year of the Age of Aquarius, on the twenty-first day of the transit of Gemini..."

Ray gulped. "That's...that's Hermetic Reckoning..." He looked at Romulus and Pollux. "That's today."

"You, Johnathan Christopher Spengler." Nodus walked up to him. "You are the answer to Sarim-Lar's mystery. You are the Lord of the Primordial Winds. You are the one everyone's been awaiting."

Romulus couldn't process this. It seemed so impossible. But at the same time...what about the strange ways Delphia always looked at him? Would that even explain the terror he evoked, as but a child, in the likes of Dweeb and Loone?

There was a cracking noise.

"The crystals!!!" Eden called out. The chrono-quartz crystals given to her and her brother by Ulforce were finally breathing their last.

The adult Spengler twins tossed them aside in just the nick of time, as they exploded in blasts of orange light. Two very familiar shapes appeared--Albert and Marie Nodus, the dopplegangers of John and Eden, dazed, with only swirls of light concealing their now nude status.

"Ah...so there are my Nodus twins..." the man calling himself Josiah Nodus smirked.

"They weren't totally lying or being metaphorical when they called you their 'Father', were they?" Winston noted.

Janine's eyes went wide. The last time she'd seen the Nodus twins, she wasn't totally herself...but now, she realized...

"When I procured them, as but newborns, I brought them here, where time is completely under my control." Nodus continued. "I raised them the way they should've been--I awakened the power within them, just as Sarim-Lar had awoken the power I denied. Then, when they were grown, and all was in readiness, we began. The Nodus Twins returned to timeline 8932, and our grand agenda to recreate the universe began--though first, of course, that meant the unravelling of what was already there..."

"The split timelines..." Winston noted.

"Ulforce and Delphia became aware of our plan, and moved to stop us. They held the fracture down to the two causalities, but our success is only a matter of time. Save for Delphia herself, the other Children of Xodiac have been erased from reality. The Order of Hermes and the Sons of Ether never existed. Most of the vaunted membership of Ghostbusters International nothing but mundane shut-ins who post on message boards."

"You're...you're fading!" Janine called, looking at John and Eden.

"The crystals were keeping our temporal integrity intact...without them..." Pollux started to say.

"You are being overwritten by the Nodus Twins." Nodus gloated. "And in a few moments, together, we will have enough power at last to stop Ulforce and Delphia's meddling. They will be erased--as will the rest of you."

"I can't believe you care so little about us..." Ray shook his head.

"That thing isn't Egon, Ray." Winston growled. "And we're not done yet..."

Romulus looked his sister in the eye. "I seem to recall our Pop making a leap of faith earlier today..."

Pollux knew what he meant. "It is not like we have much to loose at this point."

"Accept your fate, Ghostbusters." Nodus continued. "Your reality is forfeit."

"My butt." Romulus snarled, and jumped at Albert Nodus.

Pollux, similarly, jumped for her counterpart.

"What in?" Nodus spattered.

The orange light swirled around, with an intensity that blinded them all.

"John! Eden!!!" Janine called.

"Blast both you brats!!!" Nodus shouted.

The light cleared.

The adult Johnathan Christopher Spengler stood there, solid, orangish electricity cracking around him, a powder-blue bundle held to his chest. "I believe you said something about a 'unique ability to process temporal energy'..."

Eden Marie Spengler was beside him, also surrounded by orange sparks, clutching a pink bundle. "Instead, it is your mockeries that are overwritten..."

"Eden, Johnathan...what..." Egon started to say.

"No time, Pop." John shook his head. "Take care of this guy, will ya?"

Egon was shocked to realize that the blue bundle held a dazed infant whose face and wispy red hair he was already familiar with.

Next to him, Janine was now clutching the pink bundle, passed to her by Pollux. Tears were in her eyes.

Nodus snarled. Despite all his claims of having purged emotions from his nature, something that looked very much like fury was twisted into his features. "Damn both you temporal anomalies...you purged them, took the temporal energy into yourselves, restored them to their proper ages. I shall have to start all over again..."

"You gotta get by us first, Buttf***er..." Venkman snarled, realizing he'd been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time. "Form up!!!" he shouted, and with practiced precision he, Winston, and Ray had their throwers out in a perimeter around the four Spenglers.

"You think you concern me, Venkman?" Nodus sneered. "Robo Busters--kill all unauthorized entities save the infants. Protocol four."

Acknowledge The robots began to march forward.

"Aim for the joints--the knees!!!" Winston shouted, two sets of shadowy memories compelling the idea.

"Why aren't they firing?" Venkman asked.

"The same reason Nodus didn't fire earlier..." Egon answered. "Crossing the streams is..."

"Bad." Venkman finished, and nodded.

"I bet you wish you brought your proton pack about now..." Ray said to the older Twins.

"Not a worry." Romulus smirked. He gestured, and one Robo Buster that attempted to attack him flew back, split in half.

"What in..." Nodus's eyes went wide.

"When we purged your mockeries, it appears we gained the power they had in the process." Eden explained, sending a Robo Buster away with a gesture.

The Twins joined hands. The orange glow crackled and swirled.

They ran for Nodus, Robo Busters trying to stop them flung away with no effort.

Janine called out their names.

"I sense it already...the power is fading. It doesn't belong to you." Nodus snarled. "And it is useless against me anyway..."

John and Eden looked at each other. "That's not what I remember..."

A blast of energy slammed into the shocked Nodus.

"Egon! We gotta shut down the Robo Busters!!!" Venkman shouted. "This guy played us like chumps all along 'cause he has your knowledge of us--now maybe, since we know why, we can use that against him!!!"

"What do you mean?"

"He voice locked the creeps--but think! You have the same voice! All we gotta do is figure out what the access code is! And if anyone can do it, it's you!!!"

Egon thought hard...putting himself in Josiah Nodus's place...knowing all he knew about the man's divergent history...and it came to him. Simple, logical, but something that noone would expect of an Egon Spengler who had "purged his emotions"--something they'd already seen signs of not being as complete as he'd claimed.

"It's worth a try..." he finally said. "Robo Busters! Override access!!!"

_Voiceprint Josiah Nodus confirmed. Input code phrase for override_

Egon gritted his teeth. "Six Zero Eight Eight Three."

Peter Venkman felt a bead of sweat on his brow.

The Robo Busters froze. _Override accepted. Awaiting orders_

"Immediate shutdown!!! Full deactivation!!!" Egon shouted.

"NO!!!" Nodus howled. "Reinstate override, access..."

_Shutdown Sequence Intiated_ the Robo Busters said in unison, and went dark, falling to the ground.

"Six Zero Eight Eight Three..." Egon exhaled. "June 8, 1983..."

"I will kill you for this!!!" Nodus screamed, grabbing John. Angry red energies and sparking orange played around them.

"Johnathan!!!" Eden called, unleashing a blast of her own power.

Romulus flung Nodus off of him, sending the would-be dimensional dictator to the ground hard. "Hand to hand combat? You gotta be kidding! Uncle Pete always said Pop hit like a girl..."

Venkman looked at Egon sheepishly. "Well, you do..."

Nodus now looked crazed. Crazed, and old.

Ray Stantz looked at him, and for the first time....he truly saw his old friend. He holstered his thrower.

"Um...Ray..." Venkman said.

Ray walked between John and Eden. "There's no logic in this anymore, Egon."

"Don't call me that..." Nodus snarled.

"But then again...I don't think there's been much logic to this all along."

Nodus cocked an eyebrow. A very familiar gesture.

"Because I look at you, and I don't see the logic. Do you know what I see? I see a man who who's spent a hundred and fifty years going over his mistakes again and again. I see a man who wants to get back at the world that he feels wronged him."

"You made the choice that turned you into Nodus while you were in pain--Janine had just married Louis. All of us had abandoned you. Maybe you felt that was the only way..."

"And then you became obsessed with finding Lord Gemini. But don't you see? You became obsessed with finding why the Ascension--whatever that is--had failed. The problem is, deep down, you know what the failure is."

Ray walked up to him. "You saw the other choice that could've been made--the choice of hope instead of dispair. You see what your life would've been. You may not have had your knowledge, or your power, or been able to crack reality with a snap of your finger. But you would've been happy; the kind of genuine happiness that can't come out of numbers, cold logic, and godlike power. And you would've not only answered the question...you would've been part of the solution."

"I don't..."

"You're the failure." Ray shook his head. "You chose wrong."

Nodus looked ready to explode. "I chose wrong?! You dare to say that to me?! I was destined to be the greatest scientist of all!!! I became a far greater scientist than my father would have ever dared hope!!!" Nodus clutched his head, going into some kind of seizure. "How could I have been wrong?! I chose logic!!! I chose knowledge!!! Why was that the wrong choice?! Why is he the one being rewarded with destiny?! I don't...I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!"

Josiah Nodus--a man who once called himself Egon Spengler, but a man that Egon Spengler will never be--uttered one last feral howl, which diminished to a whimper, and then fell to the ground.

Ray exhaled and staggered, looking about ready to faint.

"I'm confused....did we just win?" Venkman asked after fifteen long, quiet seconds.

There was an ominous rumbling. The skies became filled with lightning, and dark clouds.

"Oh crumbs..." Egon surmised. "I think the Null Zone is destablizing..."

"Without the chrono quartz, there's no way..." Eden started to shout.

Janine held her newborn daughter, the tears flowing. _This isn't fair....their lives have just started...it just isn't..._

There was a wheezing, groaning noise. A blue shape appeared.

Ray's jaw looked ready to fall off. "The TARDIS? You're kidding!!!"

"Not quite, Doctor Stantz..." a new voice called out of the ether, as the blue shape solidified. It was an old man in blue and black, sitting in a high tech chair. "Though I was a big fan--couldn't help but to copy the noise..."

"Professor Ulforce!!!" Romulus called.

"There isn't much time!" Ulforce shook his head. "The Null Zone will collapse in seconds..."

They huddled together, as the world around them faded to white once more...

* * *

**June 13, 1999  
2:30 AM**

* * *

Ray didn't even realize he'd gone to sleep until Venkman poked him hard to wake him up. "Egon!" Ray cried, realizing his old friend was in the room too, looking haggard, exhausted...but ecstatic.

"Eden Marie was born at 1:30 AM, her brother Johnathan Christopher precisely five minutes later. "

Marie Cavendish audibly inhaled. "Eden Marie? Oh my God...she did remember..."

"Remember what?" Doris asked.

Marie shook her tired head. "Back when I told Janine that Ghostbusters was hiring a secretary...I made a joke about 'Just promise that if you get the job and marry your boss you'll name one of your kids after me...' "

There was a hearty laugh around the room as Egon recieved a heartfelt hug from everyone in turn.

" 'Christopher'?" Katharine asked. "Is that..."

Egon nodded. "Janine and I split up the naming duties. I gave our son his middle name, Christopher, from Christopher Melton--my great grandfather. Johnathan is from her side of the family..."

"My older brother." Denise Melnitz said, eyes filling with tears. "He died in Korea...I once told Jay that if she'd been a boy I mighta named her that."

"Marie, as noted, was from a promise Janine made sixteen years ago." Egon nodded in Marie Cavendish's direction. "Eden...well, in addition to being a proper Hebrew name (something Janine felt important)..." he hugged his mother. "It's similarity to 'Edison' is not unintentional."

Venkman laughed. "And heck, you even gave them 'E' and 'J' names, to boot..."

Egon chuckled. "Well...that did occur to us afterward..."

"What are we waitin' around here for?" Denise Melnitz said with noticable glee. "I think it's time we got a look at my new grandbabies..."

"Our new grandbabies..." Katharine added with just as much joy.

"I can arrange that." Egon replied, with the largest smile that any of them could remember seeing on his face. "The doctors said to make it quick--the children have been fed, and are sleeping already, but Janine needs her rest. I..." He looked at them, a strange pang coming...then subsiding. "I wish I could put it into words."

"We've all been there, old buddy." Ray smiled, patting him on the back.

* * *

Janine Spengler fought off the sleep. She knew she shouldn't fight it...the doctors told her she needed to sleep...but she didn't want to sleep. She didn't want to miss a second, didn't want to stop watching the two newborns lying peacefully nearby.

They were both so beautiful...she was, for only a fraction of a second, worried that when Egon handed her their son for the first time, that somehow it wouldn't seem as special as the instant she first held Eden...but she was wrong. It was different, but no less precious. Johnathan was no less beautiful. She loved him every bit as much.

She was anxious for Egon to get back. She wanted to see her parents, her sister, and the three men who were her brothers in all but the most literal sense of the word. She anticipated the joy on their faces when seeing Eden and John Spengler for the first time.

There was a knock at the door. Her husband appeared. "Do you feel up to some company?"

"Depends--if it's Professor Dweeb or Jack Hardemeyer, no." she replied.

"Oh, Drat." a voice came from the other side of the door--Peter Venkman doing a mocking impersonation of Norman Draverhaven's nasal voice.

"If it's our families and Ray and Winston, sure." she rolled her eyes and feigned a moment of deep consideration. "And if that Venkman guy is out there, I guess it'd be okay too."

There was a round of laughter, and the room was soon filled up with friends and relatives.

Denise Melnitz hugged her daughter. "Congratulations, Mom."

Janine laughed. "Same to you...Grandma..."

"She was already a Grandma..." Victor piped up amiably.

Everyone else stood back, allowing the Melnitzes and Katharine Spengler first access to their newborn grandchildren.

"They're both so cute..." Denise finally said. "I can't decide which one to hold first..."

Fritz laughed, tears in his eyes, as his wife finally picked up the little pink blanket. "Oh Adonai, I know that face...it's that same grumpy face Jay got from you..."

Katharine was now similarly cradling the powder blue blanket. "The Spengler genes are strong, but not indomitable. You certainly look like your father...but that distinct red hair is clearly from your mother's side." She wasn't a woman used to sloppy emotional displays, but today was definitely an exception. She had one step-grandchild; but _Edison...you have a grandson at last. And a granddaughter that is **ours**_. When her grandson grabbed her finger with a little tiny hand that looked like the one that had grabbed her fingers forty-one years earlier, Katharine's eyes welled with tears.

Katharine and the Melnitzes finally switched. "Heh...been a long time since I held a boy, either..." Denise noted. "Course all I had were girls..."

"My case was the opposite." Katharine nodded, stroking Eden's head. Do my eyes decieve me or is that a distinctly blonde wisp of hair?

And finally, the newborns' cousin and the three Ghostbusters got their turn.

"Wow..." was all Ray could say. "Eric is gonna love having some new playmates..."

"Y'know, if there weren't so many throwable objects around here, I'd comment at how much they look like our mailman..." Venkman smirked. "But since I don't want to get killed, I won't."

"Wise move." Winston rolled his eyes.

"Isn't our current postal carrier female?" Egon raised an eyebrow.

"Don't give him ideas." Janine quipped. "I hope they learn early that Uncle Peter isn't the best idea for a role model..."

Venkman feigned a look of hurt as everyone else in the room laughed.

* * *

"I feel like I'm intruding somehow..." Pollux said.

They were at the other side of a half-second phase shift, unseen but able to witness the room and it's occupants.

"Technically, you're not." Ulforce told her. "I mean, you both were there..."

"Will they remember anything?" Romulus asked. "Right now it's like....like it never happened."

"In a very real way it never did." Ulforce shook his head. "When the Null Zone collapsed, the timeline was reintigrated. All of history is restored to it's proper flow. But Delphia and I felt...a small gift was in order. They will remember Nodus, and his attempt to kidnap the children--you--later. With that, they will, unfortunately, remember Nodus and the truth about him. They will remember the imperfect worlds in fragments, like dreams. And they will know that Nodus will trouble them no more. But for right now...their moment of happiness is untainted."

Ulforce looked at John and Eden. "You they will not remember, just as they did not remember your previous meeting in 1986."

"Will we remember you?" Eden asked.

Ulforce shook his head. "Only vaguely...you will remember the existance of Professor Ulforce, the Chronomancer. The Fourth Law of Temporal Integrity protects my identity just as it does yours."

"What of him?" Eden asked, looking at Nodus. It was inevitable, she realized, that she felt sorrow at seeing his shattered form. He was, after all, an incarnation of her father...

"His mind is destroyed, his power is gone..." Ulforce shook his head. "If Delphia agrees, he will be returned to the timeline from which he came--it branched off into dimension 10211. It will give his surviving comrades at least some measure of relief to finally...know."

"What of the rest of it, Ulforce?" John finally said, features hardening. "The Ascension...the Children of Zodiac. Am I really this Lord Gemini that Nodus thought I was? If not, who is, and why are we so important to bringing him about? And if I am...what does it mean?"

"That, Doctor Spengler..." Ulforce finally answered. "Is a something that you will discover at a later time..."

* * *

Some material excerpted and edited from **Ghostbusters: Nodus**. And doesn't giving it that title make a lot more sense now? Heh heh...

Some thanks:  
--Vincent Belmont, who contributed the idea of timeline 8932 being the "prime timeline"  
--Great comic stories like "Crisis on Infinite Earths", "Zero Hour" and "Age of Apocalypse", which provided a great deal of inspiration for this story.  
--The posters on the Ectozone Message Board, who inspired me to write in that Junior Ghostbuster scene in part 5 after all. And for being so patient with the long wait.  
--Francis Moss, writer of the RGB episode "Robo Buster". Nodus's robots are, of course, based loosely on the ones in that story.

* * *

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